Crash, Karbala Attack Mark A Deadly Day

A U.S. helicopter crashed Saturday northeast of Baghdad, killing all 13 service members on board, and five more U.S. soldiers were killed in an insurgent attack on a provincial headquarters in Karbala, the military said.

The military located the crash northeast of Baghdad but gave no other specifics, except to say the incident was under investigation. Lt. Col. Josslyn Aberle, a military spokeswoman, said the cause of the crash was not known.

Capt. Frank Pascual, a military spokesman in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, said the craft was a Blackhawk helicopter and was believed to have suffered technical troubles before going down. He spoke to Al-Arabiya satellite television from its Dubai studios.

The military described the fighting in Karbala with a statement that said "an illegally armed militia group" attacked the building with grenades, small arms and "indirect fire," which usually means mortars or rockets.

"A meeting was taking place at the time of the attack to ensure the security of Shiite pilgrims participating in the Ashoura commemorations," said Brig. Gen. Vincent K. Brooks, deputy commander for Multi-National Division-Baghdad.

Karbala is 50 miles south of Baghdad and thousands of Shiite pilgrims are flocking to the city to mark the 10-day Ashoura festival commemorating the death of one of Shiite Islam's most sacred saints, Imam Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad.

The violence came as an additional 21,500 American troops began to arrive in Baghdad and surrounding regions to enact President George Bush's new strategy for the war.

The Karbala attack is of great concern because, under the new security plan for Iraq, more small U.S. units will be embedded with Iraqi forces, Logan reports.

Mr. Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki have vowed to curb the sectarian slaughter gripping the capital in what could be a last-ditch attempt to prevent Iraq from sliding into all-out civil war.

Saturday's U.S. death toll was the third highest of any day since the war began in March 2003, eclispsed only by 37 U.S. deaths on Jan. 26, 2005, and 28 on the third day of the U.S. invasion.

Saturday's helicopter crash was in the roiling and extremely violent Diyala Province sits northeast of Baghdad, where U.S. and Iraqi forces have been battling Sunni insurgents and Shiite militia forces around the city of Baqouba for months.

It was the fourth deadliest crash since the start of the war in March 2003. The worst crash occurred Jan 26, 2005, when a Marine transport helicopter crashed during a sandstorm in Iraq's western desert. Thirty Marines and one sailor were killed — the largest number of American service members to die in a single incident in Iraq.

Update: On January 21 the U.S. military corrected the number of casualties reported from the crash of a Black Hawk helicopter, from 13 to 12.

A private security contractor has filed a countersuit against the attorney representing the estates of four employees killed and mutilated in Fallujah in 2004. Blackwater USA is seeking $10 million, arguing the families breached the security guards' contracts by suing the company for wrongful death. The four families filed their suit two years ago. They say Blackwater broke its contractual obligations. The suit claims company cost-saving measures ultimately led to the deaths of the four men.

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In south Baghdad, U.S. helicopters dropped elite Iraqi police commandos into the dangerous Dora neighborhood in a raid on the Omar Brigade, an al Qaeda-linked Sunni militant group, Interior Ministry spokesman Abdul-Karim Khalaf said.

Khalaf said 15 insurgents were killed and five captured in an intense battle at two abandoned houses taken over by Sunni gunmen, who he blamed for a series of kidnappings and killings in a bid to cleanse the once-mixed Dora neighborhood of Shiite residents.

"We were provided with helicopter support by our friends in the multinational forces and we did not suffer any casualties," Khalaf said. U.S. aircraft gave covering fire, but the military did not respond to a request for comment on the raid.

(AP)

Elsewhere in Baghdad, Iraqi police and hospital officials said a joint U.S.-Iraqi force searched a hospital in the volatile Sunni-dominated western neighborhood of Yarmouk.

The Americans confiscated weapons and ID cards from the police and guards at the hospital after a confrontation in which a guard demanded the soldiers deposit their weapons at the door.

"We resolved the matter within minutes and the Americans gave the Iraqi policemen their weapons and IDs cards back and now everything is OK," said Khalaf, the Interior Ministry spokesman.

Dr. Haqi Ismail, the hospital manager, said the raid occurred at 4:30 a.m.

"They were looking for someone, they searched all the rooms and the emergency unit," he said.