Two US helicopters down in Iraq, 12 dead

By ANDREW MARSHALL

BAGHDAD - Two US helicopters crashed in northern Iraq on Saturday, killing at least 12 people aboard, after one was hit on the tail by a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG), a US officer at the scene said.

The crashes, in which nine other people on the Black Hawk helicopters were wounded, came hours after the announcement of a faster timetable for Iraqi self-rule which Washington hopes will pacify Iraqi resentment over foreign occupation.

The officer at the northern city of Mosul said: "I know one of the helicopters was hit by an RPG on the tail wing."

The helicopters were attached to the US 101st Airborne Division but the identities of the casualties were not immediately released.

Witnesses said the helicopters collided and came down in a residential area.

"I was watching TV when I heard a large explosion," said local man Mohammad Badran. "I looked outside the window and saw two helicopters. One was flying low and was on fire. The other was higher up. The first one climbed and hit the higher one."

Sirens wailed and US soldiers sealed off the area. There was no immediate information on any casualties on the ground.

Two US helicopters have already been shot down in Iraq this month, at a cost of 22 American lives.

Facing a mounting death toll and increasingly audacious guerrilla attacks, Washington has been pushing for a speedier transition to Iraqi self-rule.

Iraq's US administrator Paul Bremer was recalled to Washington earlier this week for hastily convened talks on the situation in Iraq. On his return to Baghdad, the US-appointed Iraqi Governing Council unveiled a new political timetable.

A transitional assembly will be selected by May next year by caucuses in each of Iraq's 18 provinces. That assembly will pick the transitional government from amongst its ranks by the end of June, the Council's current president Jalal Talabani said.

Talabani said the transitional government would take over sovereignty from the occupying powers. A constitution would be written and democratic elections held by the end of 2005.

"I am very happy and proud. The dream of the Iraqi people has been achieved today," Talabani said. Once sovereignty was transferred, "the state of occupation would end", he added.

While Iraq will no longer legally be in a state of occupation, Washington fully expects any new government to request a sizeable US-led force to remain in the country.

"The presence of the forces of the United States and other countries will be discussed by the transitional government," Talabani said. "If we need them to stay, we will ask them to stay. If we don't, we will respectfully ask them to leave."

In Washington, US President George W. Bush issued a statement welcoming the new timetable.

Adnan Pachachi, another member of the Governing Council, said the United States had now agreed to act on Iraqi aspirations for self-rule.

"I think they have responded to our insistent desire that we should rule ourselves and we should have an elected government, and I'm very glad to see that our point of view and their point of view have coincided," he told a news conference.

Bush has said US troops will stay until Iraq is stabilised. But more than seven months after US-led invasion forces ousted Saddam Hussein, the country is far from calm.

The US military said one US soldier was killed and two soldiers were wounded in Baghdad by an improvised bomb on Saturday.

Insurgents, now mounting some 30 attacks a day, have killed 160 US soldiers in Iraq since Bush declared major combat over on May 1. US forces in Baghdad have hit back with "Operation Iron Hammer" for the past three days, using air strikes to destroy buildings they say were used by insurgents.

The bodies of 16 Italian military personnel and two civilians killed in a suicide bombing in the southern Iraqi town of Nassiriya on Wednesday were returned on Saturday to Rome. They were met by grieving families and military honours.

Another soldier wounded in the blast died in Kuwait on Saturday. State funerals for those killed in Italy's worst military disaster since World War Two will be held on Tuesday.

A Portuguese radio reporter kidnapped in southern Iraq has been released unharmed, his station reported on Saturday.

Carlos Raleiras of private radio station TSF was released in the Iraqi desert a few km (miles) from the Kuwaiti border, TSF said. It said he had contacted the station.

Raleiras was seized on Friday by gunmen who opened fire on a caravan of cars carrying Portuguese reporters.

- REUTERS

Herald Feature: Iraq