Iraq

Two U.S. soldiers die after helicopter hits another

MOSUL, Iraq - A helicopter accident at an air base in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul killed two U.S. soldiers and injured four, the military said Friday.

The crash occurred when an AH-64 Apache helicopter hit a UH-60 Black Hawk that was on the ground, U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. Paul Hastings said. The accident is under investigation and the cause had not been determined, he said.

The four injured soldiers have returned to duty. They and the two soldiers who died were all from Task Force Olympia, whose headquarters are in Mosul.

The names of the soldiers who died were being withheld until their families are notified.

BAGHDAD - The Red Cross team entered Fallujah for the first time since a U.S.-led offensive devastated the city and met with Iraqi technicians and engineers to discuss the city's sewage and water treatment needs, a group spokesman said Friday.

But the team, which entered the city on Tuesday, did not have time to inspect a potato chip warehouse where the military said the bodies of several hundred insurgents or civilians were stored.

The U.S. military claims that 1,200 insurgents were killed in the invasion, which began on Nov. 8 and ended a week later. At least 50 Marines and eight Iraqi soldiers were killed, while no civilian casualty figures have been released.

During the visit, the team found that sewage had flooded the streets in parts of Fallujah, spokesman Ahmed Rawi said.

The ICRC's mandate is to care for the wounded and other victims of war, and it rejects military escorts to show its independence.

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka - Iraqi militants have released a Sri Lankan truck driver and his Bangladeshi colleague after holding them hostage for 43 days, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Colombo said Friday.

The men, who worked for a Kuwaiti transport company, are in the process of being returned to their home countries, according to the ministry's Web site. A group calling itself the Islamic Army abducted them Oct. 28 as they entered an undisclosed American base.

There are now at least seven foreign hostages held in Iraq, including two French journalists and an American worker for a Saudi company. More than 170 foreigners have been seized; more than 30 were later slain, including at least three whose kidnappings were claimed by the Islamic Army.

WASHINGTON - A Navy fighter jet accidentally shot down during the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq had been misidentified by two Army Patriot missile batteries as an incoming Iraqi missile, a military investigation has found.

Soldiers also violated standard procedures involving the launch of the missiles around Karbala, Iraq, on April 2, 2003, but a summary of the inquiry posted Friday on the U.S. Central Command's Web site provided no more detail.

The U.S. military also blamed an electronic system for a friendly fire incident that killed both crew members of a British Tornado GR4A near the Iraqi-Kuwaiti border on March 22, 2003. The system failed to identify the craft as friendly.

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