Videos Show Downing of Helicopter, Killing in Iraq

Video recordings showing the downing of a commercial helicopter in central Iraq and the execution of the sole surviving crew member emerged Friday on the Internet and an Arab satellite news channel.

The videos circulated as insurgents detonated a car bomb outside a Shiite Muslim mosque in eastern Baghdad, apparently the latest sectarian violence in Iraq. The blast killed at least eight people, witnesses and hospital workers said.

Two Muslim militant groups claimed responsibility for the footage, which shows an attack Thursday that killed six American security guards, three Bulgarian crew members and two Fijian guards. The helicopter, owned by Heli Air, was the first civilian aircraft shot down since the U.S.-led invasion two years ago.

Al Jazeera showed a white, low-flying helicopter moving away from the camera when two loud booms are heard. The aircraft then erupts into flames and arcs toward the ground in a cluster of disintegrating debris. Al Jazeera said a group calling itself the Mujahedin Army in Iraq had made the clip.

Another video, posted on a militant website, apparently shows gunmen finding a Bulgarian crew member alive at the crash site and killing him.

A group calling itself the Islamic Army in Iraq claimed responsibility for the footage, Associated Press reported. The man in the video was identified as pilot Lyubomir Kostov by Mihail Mihailov, a Heli Air manager, the news service reported.

As the camera pans across some rocky terrain, two smoldering human figures come into view. Someone says in Arabic: “Look at that filth.” In the background, two or three men walk around the wreckage. Metallic clacking, possibly from a shoulder-slung rifle, can be heard.

The cameraman wades through waist-high grass and comes across Kostov, dressed in his navy blue jumpsuit, lying on his back.

“Stand up! Stand up!” someone says in accented English.

Kostov raises his head a little and replies, “I can’t, it’s broken, give me a hand.” The pilot raises his arms for assistance and is pulled up by someone off camera. Kostov groans to his feet.

“Weapons? Weapons? Weapons?” someone shouts in Arabic. Then a voice commands, “Go! Go! Go!” Kostov takes a few limping steps through the grass, until gunmen start to ready their weapons.

As Kostov turns around, someone says, “Carry out God’s verdict.” Kostov raises his hand in a futile motion and is shot several times. The shots continue as he falls backward and lies still.

The videos circulating Friday were the latest installment in a series of grisly recordings of shootings, beheadings and insurgent attacks produced by Muslim extremists since the invasion of Iraq.

A video released to Al Jazeera late last month shows gunmen threatening to kill four hostages, three Romanian journalists and an Iraqi American translator, unless Romanian troops leave Iraq within four days.

Looking gaunt and frightened, two of the hostages appear to be speaking, but no audio was broadcast.

The blast at the Baghdad mosque, meanwhile, injured at least 30 worshipers and caused part of the structure to collapse.

“There were so many people because in addition to the Friday prayer, we also had a memorial for the dead at the mosque,” said the mosque’s head cleric. Fearing further attacks, he declined to reveal his name.

“They were men, women and even children, all were civilians,” said Iraqi Police Sgt. Raid Hammad Mirza. “We took about 20 wounded to the hospital and about 10 corpses.”

Limbs were scattered throughout the rubble. People in bloody clothes searched for their loved ones, and some cried to God and beat their chests in grief. A water basin used for ablutions was soiled with blood.

The attack came on a day when many clerics across the nation were focusing their Friday sermons on apparent sectarian violence that emerged earlier this week in the area around Madaen southeast of Baghdad, on the edge of the Shiite heartland. Scores of decomposing bodies were discovered in the Tigris River -- evidence, witnesses said, of a possible weeks-long campaign against Shiites by Sunni insurgents. Leaders of both sects have seized on the issue to make charges and countercharges against each other.

But on Friday many Baghdad clerics urged their flocks to remain calm.

Speaking at the Bratha Mosque, Sheik Jalaluddin Saghir urged the Shiite worshipers to ignore the acts of sectarian agitators because, he warned, further strife would lengthen the U.S.-led coalition’s occupation of Iraq.

“There is increasing pressure and efforts trying to separate the people of our country, the Sunni and Shiite, in their aim to start a civil war in Iraq,” Saghir said. He said foreign and native insurgents were trying to incite “sectarian tensions between our people.”

Also on Friday, the bodies of five Iraqi national guardsmen were found near Baiji, about 125 miles north of Baghdad, Reuters reported, citing police.

In addition, the U.S. military announced the deaths of four American servicemen. Roadside bombs killed two Marines near Ramadi on Wednesday and a soldier near Tall Afar on Friday, the military reported. On Thursday, another Marine was killed close to Al Karmah near Fallouja, but a military spokeswoman did not provide details of the incident.

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Times staff writers Raheem Salman, Caesar Ahmed and Saif Rasheed contributed to this report.