BASRA, 8 May 2006 — Five British servicemen were killed as a helicopter went down in the southern Iraqi city of Basra, the military said yesterday, as troops recovered the aircraft’s burned-out wreckage.
“Five of our troops perished in the helicopter crash,” British military spokesman Maj. Sebastian Muntz told AFP, while the Ministry of Defense in London only confirmed that up to five people were on board the stricken craft.
“There were no more than five people on board the helicopter,” British Defense Secretary Des Browne told BBC television. “We are currently informing the next of kin.”
The crash on Saturday sparked bloody clashes with at least five Iraqis killed and dozens wounded when British troops sent to recover their dead from the crashed Lynx helicopter encountered an angry mob. Two Iraqi children were among the dead.
As a precautionary measure, the police imposed a curfew in the port city for the second consecutive night yesterday from 8:00 p.m. (1600 GMT) to 6:00 a.m. (0200 GMT) today.
British troops yesterday completed recovering the wreckage of the helicopter that crashed in the center of Basra, in a residential district called Al-Rabbat.
“We have recovered the entire wreckage of the helicopter,” said another spokesman, Lt. Col. Richard Eaton.
Munther Taha, on whose house the aircraft fell, said the British troops had worked overnight to recover the wreckage.
“The work to recover the wreckage has been on since last evening,” Taha, a science professor at Basra University told AFP.
Muntz stressed earlier yesterday there were no survivors from the crash. “We would be reporting (it) if there were survivors,” the spokesman said.
The latest fatalities brought British military death toll in Iraq since the March 2003 US-led invasion to 109, according to an AFP count based on British Defense Ministry figures.
Prior to the helicopter crash, the British military had lost 79 soldiers in combat operations.
Browne said investigations were underway to determine the cause of the helicopter crash.
On Saturday local police said the aircraft was brought down by a rocket, although London remained tight-lipped.
Eaton said it was still too early to comment on the cause, adding, “We still have to assess and analyze the crash.”
President Jalal Talabani condemned what he called “a vile crime” against the British troops, in a message to British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
Basra city council chief Mohammed Al-Ebadi said a probe would determine the cause. “There is no immediate evidence pointing that the chopper received hostile fire, except some witnesses claiming that was the case,” he said.
