BAGHDAD, 21 January 2007 — A US military helicopter crashed northeast of Baghdad yesterday, killing all 13 military personnel on board, but the US military gave no immediate details on the cause. It was one of the deadliest single incidents in four years of war and the bloodiest since US President George W. Bush announced an increase in troop numbers that has run into stiff opposition among Democrats now controlling Congress. The incident brought to 16 the number of US military deaths announced yesterday.
Dozens of helicopters have crashed in Iraq over the past four years since the US-led invasion, a number shot down by insurgents. The area northeast of Baghdad is one where fighting has been intense between US forces and guerrillas. “A US forces helicopter went down northeast of Baghdad this afternoon. Emergency Coalition Forces responded and secured the scene. Thirteen passengers and crew members were aboard the aircraft and all were killed,” said the statement. It did not identify the type of helicopter. The Blackhawk helicopter widely used in Iraq carries four crew and about 10 passengers on a typical flight.
House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi accused Bush on Friday of playing politics with soldiers’ lives. “The president knows that because the troops are in harm’s way, that we won’t cut off the resources,” Pelosi, head of the Democratic-led House, told ABC television. “That’s why he’s moving so quickly to put them in harm’s way.”
Meanwhile, Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad pledged yesterday to work with the Iraqi authorities to wipe out “terrorism,” on the final day of a landmark visit by Iraqi counterpart Jalal Talabani. The two heads of state, whose countries only restored relations in November after a 26-year rupture, held “frank, sincere and positive” discussions on the situation both in Iraq and the region, the official SANA news agency said in Damascus.
In a joint statement issued as Talabani wrapped up the first visit to Syria by an Iraqi head of state in three decades, the two leaders condemned “all forms of terrorism plaguing the Iraqi people and their institutions, infrastructure and security service.” Bashar, whose regime US commanders accuse of turning a blind eye to the smuggling of men and weapons to insurgents in Iraq, joined Talabani in expressing “readiness to work together and do everything possible to eradicate terrorism.”
He expressed his “support for the political process under way in Iraq ... and the efforts being made by the Iraqi government to achieve national reconciliation and stability.” The two leaders described Talabani’s visit as “historic” and said it would “usher in a new phase in fraternal relations.” The Iraqi president hailed the “end of the political rupture between the two countries.”
Talabani, a former Kurdish rebel leader whose assumption of Iraq’s presidency angered many Arabs, recalled that his country had been a founding member of the Arab League and pledged to “reactivate its Arab role.” The Iraqi president acknowledged the need for “concrete steps to rebuild the armed forces and dissolve militias” connected to Shiite Arab parties that lead the Baghdad government.
In Baghdad yesterday, elite Iraqi police forces dropped off by US helicopters staged a raid against an Al-Qaeda-linked Sunni militant group, killing 15 insurgents and capturing five others, the Interior Ministry said. A US soldier, meanwhile, was killed by a roadside bomb in the capital yesterday, the military said, adding that two other American troops were killed the day before — one in the northwest province of Ninevah and the other in the volatile Anbar province west of Baghdad.
