- Mafkarat al-Islam is reporting that eyewitnesses as saying
that Iraqi Resistance forces fired a SAM7 rocket, bringing down a US helicopter
over the city of ar-Rutbah, 460km west of Baghdad at 7am Wednesday. The
helicopter had been on its way to the village of Makr adh-Dhib, which lies
near the city. The American forces regularly carry out helicopter landings
in that area to raid and search houses and arrest people as it is virtually
impossible to infiltrate the area by land.
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- Shepherds and motorists who witnessed the attack told
Mafkarat al-Islam that they saw the Americans gathering the remains of
31 American bodies from the desert west of ar-Rutbah. The US forces also
evacuated a large number of wounded troops. Other American vehicles, meanwhile,
loaded up and hauled away the wreckage of the helicopter that had been
scattered over an approximately two-kilometer area.
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- Local witnesses told Mafkarat al-Islam that they hoped
the Arab and Islamic news media would come and take pictures of the extent
of the losses, which are what the local Resistance inflicts on the Americans
every day. They said that the Americans were forced to announce the downing
of this helicopter, something they seldom do, because numerous delegations
of people from Baghdad and other provinces were scheduled to arrive in
ar-Rutbah Wednesday and some of them were bound to have seen the crash
or heard about it.
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- The Mafkarat al-Islam correspondent reported that a local
amateur photographer managed to take a video of the wreckage of the helicopter
and hid it in his shoe when passing through one of the checkpoints thrown
up by the Americans around the crash zone. The amateur cameraman pledged
to gave the film to the Mafkarat al-Islam correspondent so still pictures
from it can be shown on the website as soon as the cassette arrives in
the editorial office.
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