U.S. Copter Crashes in Iraq; Crew Missing
A U.S. helicopter crashed in the Tigris River in the northern city of Mosul while searching for a soldier Sunday, and the aircraft’s two crew members were missing, the military said.
It did not say what caused the crash of the OH-58 Kiowa Warrior helicopter attached to the Army’s 101st Airborne Division.
The helicopter was searching for a soldier missing when his patrol boat capsized. The other three soldiers in the boat were safe, but two Iraqi police officers and an Iraqi translator were killed in the incident, said Maj. Josslyn Aberle, a spokeswoman for the Army’s 4th Infantry Division.
It was the fifth helicopter crash in Iraq this month -- three of them due to hostile fire.
U.S. troops arrested nearly 50 people Sunday in raids in the “Sunni Triangle” after a series of attacks Saturday that killed five troops. A sixth soldier, hurt after a rocket-propelled grenade hit his vehicle Saturday, died Sunday of his wounds. The soldier’s name was withheld pending notification of family.
The latest deaths raised to 513 the number of U.S. troops who have died since the United States and its allies launched the Iraq war March 20.
Most of the deaths have occurred since President Bush declared an end to major combat May 1.
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