BAGHDAD, 23 August 2007 — A Black Hawk helicopter went down yesterday in northern Iraq, killing all 14 US soldiers aboard, the military said, the deadliest crash since January 2005.
The military said initial indications showed the UH-60 helicopter experienced a mechanical problem and was not brought down by hostile fire, but the cause of the crash was still under investigation.
It was one of two helicopters on a nighttime operation. The four crew members and 10 passengers who perished were assigned to Task Force Lightning, the military said. It did not release identities pending notification of relatives.
The US military relies heavily on helicopters to avoid the threat of ambushes and roadside bombs — the deadliest weapon in the militants’ arsenal — and dozens have crashed in accidents or been shot down.
The deadliest crash occurred on Jan. 26, 2005, when a CH-53 Sea Stallion transport helicopter went down in a sandstorm in western Iraq, killing 31 US troops.
A US soldier was also killed and three others were wounded yesterday during fighting west of Baghdad, the military said separately.
Yesterday’s deaths raised to at least 3,722 members of the US military who have died since the Iraq war started in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.
Elsewhere, a suicide truck bomber targeted a police agency in northern Iraq, killing at least 27 people and wounding 65, police and hospital officials said.
The attack occurred just before noon in Baiji, 155 miles north of Baghdad, according to the officials, who said those killed included 18 policemen and nine civilians, while 20 officers and 45 civilians were wounded.
Brig. Gen. Kevin Bergner, a US military spokesman in Baghdad, said the attack bore all the hallmarks of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, including the use of a suicide bomber and the high number of civilian casualties.
“It appears to be something that is consistent with an Al-Qaeda-related attack,” he told AP Radio in an interview.
Iraqi police and soldiers have frequently been targeted by militants seeking to disrupt US-led efforts to enable the forces to take over their own security so foreign troops can go home.
A bomb and small-arms attack against a security post shared by police and US paratroopers also killed 13 Iraqi officers in Baiji in late June.
Jassim Saleh, 41, who lives about 500 meters from the blast site, said he saw an explosive-laden truck carrying stones strike the police station.
“It was a horrible scene. I can’t describe it,” he said. “The bodies were scattered everywhere. I was injured in my hand and a leg, but I took three wounded people to the hospital in my car.”
A roadside bomb also targeted a police patrol in the center of Tikrit, Saddam Hussein’s hometown 80 miles north of Baghdad, killing one officer and wounding another, along with two civilians, authorities said.
Also yesterday, a suicide bomber on a motorbike attacked a police patrol as it passed through an Iraqi market and left 38 people dead or wounded, a regional police commander said.
The attacker struck in the center of Muqdadiyah, 62 miles northeast of Baghdad, at nightfall, said Maj. Gen. Abdel Karim Al-Ambagi, head of the Iraqi security forces’ control room in the restive Diyala province.
There were 38 victims among the police and bystanders, he said, but was unable to say how many of the casualties had died.
Diyala province is the subject of a threeway battle control between US-led forces, Al-Qaeda inspired Sunni militants and Shiite militias.
Meanwhile, the Pentagon expects to deliver only 1,500 mine-proof armored vehicles to Iraq by the end of the year, less than half the number promised a month ago, a spokesman said yesterday.
Press Secretary Geoff Morrell said the Pentagon will not be able to meet its goal of delivering 3,500 Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles by the end of the year. “If we could get 1,500 to theater by the end of this year that would be a positive development,” he said.
Morrell said production of the vehicles will ramp up through December, and the Pentagon still hopes to meet its production target by the end of the year.
But it takes about 50 days to equip and ship a vehicle to Iraq, too long to get the bulk of the newly produced vehicles to Iraq by the end of the year, he said.
“We’re trying very hard to condense the time it takes to equip these vehicles and get them to theater,” he said.
Morrell initially attributed the delays to not being able to line up enough vendors to meet the production goal, which he described as a “best case scenario.” But he later told reporters that was wrong.
US Defense Secretary Robert Gates made the MRAPs the Defense Department’s top acquisition priority after learning that not a single Marine has been killed in one.
On July 18, the Pentagon announced plans to use a $1.2 billion boost in funding to accelerate production of the million-dollar vehicles.
Assistant Secretary of Defense John Young said then that the Pentagon hoped to produce 3,900 MRAPs by the end of the year, and deliver 3,500 of them to Iraq.
The MRAP’s raised chassis and V-shaped hull is designed to deflect explosions outward, offering greater underbelly protection against roadside mines than Humvees.
The Marines have only about 200 of the vehicles in theater. The army, which had resisted buying more because of their greater weight, has only about 300 similarly designed armored vehicles in Iraq, Pentagon officials said.
