Bomb Kills 8 At Baghdad Mosque

20 Injured In Attack During Midday Prayers

(CBS/AP) 
On Thursday, insurgents brought down a Russian-made helicopter carrying 11 civilians with missile fire north of the capital and said they captured and shot to death the lone crew member who survived.

The chartered flight was believed to be the first civilian aircraft shot down in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion two years ago. The dead included six American bodyguards for U.S. diplomats, three Bulgarian crew and two security guards from Fiji, officials said.

The helicopter went down about 12 miles north of Baghdad. Associated Press Television News footage showed burning wreckage from the craft and personal belongings scattered across a wide area.

U.S. officials could not confirm the cause of the crash. However, the Bulgarian Defense Ministry said the helicopter was struck by missile fire.

Bulgarian Defense Minister Nikolai Svinarov said Friday the crash was a "terrorist attack," but it will not affect Bulgaria's military involvement in Iraq.

"Bulgaria should not waver under terrorist pressure," said Svinarov, whose country has a 460-member contingent in Iraq.

A group calling itself the Islamic Army in Iraq posted a video on the Internet Thursday purporting to show the shooting of a survivor.

The authenticity of the footage, posted on a Web forum often used by militant groups, could not be confirmed. A U.S. Embassy official in Baghdad said he had no knowledge that anyone on board survived the crash and was killed later.

In the footage, which shows burning wreckage and two charred bodies, militants come across an injured man wearing a blue flightsuit lying in tall grass. His nationality was not immediately known.

"It's broken," he says in accented English, apparently referring to his leg, as militants — unseen except in brief glances tell him to stand up. "Weapons? Weapons?" the gunmen ask him in Arabic and English as he stands uneasily.

The gunmen tell him, "Go!", and the survivor starts to hobble away, holding his hands up toward them. The gunmen then open fire, shouting "Allahu akbar!" or "God is great!" with the bullets hitting his body. They fire more shots into his body on the ground.

The six Americans were employed by Blackwater Security Consulting, a subsidiary of North Carolina-based security contractor Blackwater USA, which had four employees slain and mutilated by insurgents in Fallujah a year ago — deaths that touched off a Marine assault on insurgents in the city.

The Islamic Army statement said it killed the survivor "in revenge for the Muslims who have been killed in cold blood in the mosques of tireless Fallujah before the eyes of the world and on television screens, without anyone condemning them." It was apparently referring to the Nov. 13 shooting by an American soldier of a wounded Iraqi in a Fallujah mosque during a U.S. offensive in the city.

Blackwater said another one of its guards was killed and four were injured Thursday when an explosive device was detonated next to an armored personnel carrier near Ramadi. No further details were released.