Iraq TV shows men said to be Apache pilots

9.30am

BAGHDAD - Iraqi television has shown video footage of two men it said were the crew of an Apache helicopter that was downed after running into ground fire during a combat mission southwest of Baghdad.

The two men were seen sitting and both appeared to be in good health. They did not say anything and were not questioned on video. Iraqi television showed the identity papers of the two men and said their helicopter was shot down by a farmer.

Earlier Iraq said farmers had shot down two US helicopters south of Baghdad.
The commander of the US-led invasion of Iraq General Tommy Franks confirmed the loss of one Apache Longbow helicopter.

"The fate of the crew is uncertain right now. We characterise that crew, two men, as missing in action," GeneralFranks told a news briefing at Central Command in Qatar.

Iraqi television showed pictures of the downed Apache in a field surrounded by Iraqis waving rifles. The black helicopter, still armed with guided missiles with US markings on them, appeared intact with no sign of having been shot down.

Two helmets were shown at the scene but there was no sign of the crew in the television videotape.

Reuters photographer Faleh Kheiber later went to the scene and said the Apache was still loaded with at least two air-to-surface missiles. Eyewitnesses told him it had flown low over palm trees, allowing farmers and soldiers to fire at it.

Franks said the helicopter was one of "between 30 and 40 attacking a particular area". He denied it had been shot down by farmers but did not say what had forced it out of the air.

CNN correspondent Karl Penhaul, accompanying the US Army Fifth Corps 11th Attack Helicopter Regiment, said the unit had been on a night-time combat mission targeting units of President Saddam Hussein's elite Republican Guard.

He cited one of the pilots as saying they had run into a "hornet's nest, a barrage of anti-aircraft fire" near the city of Kerbala, 110km southwest of Baghdad, the closest fighting to the Iraqi capital since the war began last Thursday.

"It was all they could do to defend themselves. They were unable to achieve many of their objectives... They had to return fire and get out of the situation," the CNN reporter said.

Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf told a news conference: "Farmers shot down two Apaches. We showed one today and might show the second and the pilots."

"We are holding several other American and British prisoners and we may show some of them," the minister said.

"They are supporting the criminals, the Zionist regime, and they are talking about the Geneva Convention, so we will continue showing whichever mercenaries fall into our hands."

"They show Iraqi civilians and lie to the world and say they are Iraqi soldiers and they are not," he said.

"This is not a double standard... this is despicable."

Television has shown hundreds of Iraqi soldiers surrendering to US and British forces since the war began last Thursday.

Yesterday, Iraq put five US captives on television and showed up to eight bloodied corpses of what it said were US soldiers killed in fighting near the southern town of Nassiriya.

US President George W Bush said Iraqis who treated the captives inhumanely would be tried for war crimes.

In Kuwait, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) accused both sides of defying the Geneva Convention.

While the media is not bound by the Geneva Convention, the ICRC said all states who have signed it have an obligation not to expose any prisoners of war to public scrutiny.

Iraqi television spoke to an Iraqi farmer it said had shot down the Apache.

"It was shot down by the rifle of a heroic farmer from Kerbala, Ali Obeid Mingash, from the Hindiyah tribes. He is a brave fighter, he is one of the sons of great Iraq," said the television correspondent with the farmer standing by his side smiling and holding a rifle.

The Boeing Company Apache is a twin-engine army attack helicopter which was deployed in the 1991 Gulf War, Bosnia, Kosovo and Afghanistan. It uses laser, infrared and other high-technology systems to find, track and attack targets.

During the 1991 Gulf War, AH-64A Apaches destroyed more than 500 tanks and hundreds of armoured personnel carriers.

- REUTERS