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Iraq

Bodies of two American copter pilots found in Iraq

By wire services
Published April 3, 2006

BAGHDAD - The U.S. military said Sunday that the bodies of two American pilots killed when their Apache helicopter crashed near Baghdad were recovered and the aircraft was probably shot down. Three other U.S. soldiers were reported killed in Baghdad and northern Iraq.

The AH-64D Apache Longbow went down about 5:30 p.m. Saturday during combat operations west of Youssifiyah, about 10 miles southwest of Baghdad, the U.S. command said in a statement.

No further details were released, but Youssifiyah is located in the "triangle of death," a religiously mixed area notorious for attacks by Sunni extremists against Shiites traveling between Baghdad and religious shrines south of the capital.

It was the first loss of a U.S. helicopter since three of them crashed in a 10-day period in January, killing 18 American military personnel. At least two of those helicopters were shot down.

The U.S. command also said three more soldiers had been killed - two by a roadside bomb late Saturday in central Baghdad and another from nonhostile-related injuries suffered near Kirkuk in northern Iraq.

Meanwhile, the bodies of at least 42 men have been found in several neighborhoods of the Iraqi capital since Saturday, according to police Maj. Falah al-Mohammedawi. All were handcuffed and had been shot - apparent victims of reprisal killings between Sunni and Shiite extremists.

A government prosecutor said Sunday that an investigative judge will file new criminal charges against Saddam Hussein in the next few days, charging him in the deaths and deportation of thousands of Kurds in the 1980s.

The new charges would involve Hussein's alleged role in Operation Anfal, which included the 1988 gassing of about 5,000 Kurdish civilians in Halabja, chief prosecutor Jaafar al-Moussawi said.

[Last modified April 3, 2006, 00:43:06]