- FALLUJAH, Iraq (AP) -- A
U.S. military helicopter was hit by ground fire Tuesday and forced to land,
and three crew members were wounded. One Marine in a rescue squad was killed
by insurgents who attacked with mortars, small arms and rocket-propelled
grenades, the military said.
-
- Insurgents said they downed the craft with a rocket-propelled
grenade.
-
- Lt. Col. Brennan Byrne, the Marine commander in the area,
said the H-53 Sikorsky helicopter went down before dawn.
-
- "This morning a helicopter made an emergency landing
due to ground fire. The attack resulted in three wounded and a quick reaction
force secured the crew and the helicopter was later destroyed to prevent
it from falling into enemy hands," said Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, deputy
chief of U.S. military operations in Iraq.
-
- The team that extracted the Marine crew came under mortar
fire and was ambushed as it pulled back by gunmen using small weapons and
rocket-propelled grenades.
-
- A Marine was killed by mortar fire, Kimmitt said. Marine
spokesman 1st Lt. Eric Knapp said seven Marines were wounded in the area.
-
- An Associated Press reporter later saw the craft burning
in a field 12 miles east of Fallujah. Photos of the wreckage showed no
sign of bodies.
-
- About a dozen masked gunmen were near the wreckage, with
at least one carrying an RPG launcher.
-
- "The helicopter was passing overhead, and we happened
to be hiding here. We fired an RPG at it and it fell," one of the
gunmen said.
-
- While Fallujah has been relatively calm for four days,
the area between the besieged city and Baghdad has seen heavy clashes between
gunmen and U.S. forces. Insurgents shot down an Apache on Sunday in nearby
Abu Ghraib, killing its two crew members.
-
- Before Tuesday's helicopter crash, a U.S. convoy was
attacked near the same site, and two Humvees and a truck were burning,
said witnesses, who also reported U.S. casualties.
-
- - Associated Press reporter Abul-Qader Saadi in Fallujah
contributed to this report.
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- Copyright 2004 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
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- http://cbsnewyork.com/international/Iraq-Helicopter-ai/resources_news_html
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