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Iraqi Group Claims Downing of U.S. Copter

By Thomas Wagner / Associated Press

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Al-Qaida in Iraq on Thursday claimed to have shot down a U.S. Marine Super Cobra attack helicopter that crashed in a militant stronghold west of Baghdad the day before, killing its two crew members. The authenticity of the statement could not be confirmed.

Meanwhile, a U.S. soldier died Thursday when his vehicle hit a roadside bomb near Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, the military said. The killing raised to at least 2,037 the number of U.S. military service members who have died since the Iraq conflict began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

The helicopter crash, which killed two Marines, occurred Wednesday near Ramadi during two days of fighting there that saw three other U.S. service members killed by roadside bombs.

Hours after the helicopter crash, a U.S. fighter jet dropped two 500-pound bombs on what the U.S. military described as an "insurgent command center" about 400 meters (yards) from where the helicopter went down. An Associated Press Television News video from the scene showed local residents digging through the rubble of several homes and burying about half a dozen bodies in graves. The bodies were covered with blankets, making it impossible to identify them.

On Thursday, Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, a U.S. military spokesman, told a news conference in Baghdad that witnesses reported seeing a projectile fired at the helicopter, which broke up in the air, but that the cause of the crash remained unknown and was being investigated.

"Brethren in al-Qaida in Iraq's military wing downed a Super Cobra attack helicopter in Ramadi with a Strella rocket, thanks be to God," al-Qaida in Iraq said in a statement posted on an Islamist Web forum. The site is often used for al-Qaida claims and bore the nickname of its spokesman, Abu Maysara al-Iraqi.

In a separate statement, al-Qaida in Iraq also said it has sentenced to death two Moroccan embassy employees kidnapped last month in Iraq.

Two Iraqi policemen were killed in a drive-by shooting in Baghdad on Thursday, and bodies of 12 men who had been kidnapped and killed were found in a sewage station, police said.

But few attacks by Sunni-led insurgents were reported in Iraq on Thursday as Sunni Arabs began the three-day religious holiday of Eid al-Fitr, which ends a month of fasting during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. Most Iraqi Shiites start the holiday Friday.

In Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's hometown, children appeared on the streets in new clothes, and the amusement park was crowded with families for the start of the Eid al-Fitr holiday.

But long-standing animosity to U.S. forces also was apparent in the mostly Sunni city, 130 80 miles north of Baghdad.

"The real Eid for Iraqis will be the day that occupation forces get out of our country," said Aqel Omar, 48, a retired government employee, as he gathered with about 30 relatives at the home of their local tribesman. "I hope that next year our country is liberated and stable and that we can rebuild it again," he said in an interview.

The day began for many Sunnis in Tikrit with early morning services at their mosques. At one, a preacher called for the withdrawal of all U.S. forces from the country. But his sermon also urged Sunnis to vote in Iraq's Dec. 15 parliamentary election.

Most Sunnis had boycotted the Jan. 30 vote that elected the current interim parliament, but many turned up for the constitutional referendum on Oct. 15, and plan to cast ballots in the December election in an effort to get more Sunnis into Iraq's next government.

Eid celebrations also were taking place in Baghdad's mostly Sunni neighborhood of Azamiyah.

Children flocked to the local amusement park, as Iraqi and U.S. troops stepped up security in the area. Boys and girls lined up to take rides on a small Ferris wheel, a swing set and a horse-drawn carriage.

But Zuhair Shihab, 45, the owner of a food stall in the park, said he felt sad, having just heard that the body of one of his friends had been found on a street of Baghdad, 10 days after he had been kidnapped.

Shihab also was angered by the coalition forces in Azamiyah.

"What kind of Eid we can we celebrate in the presence of U.S. troops?" he said in an interview. "They brought all this misery to us."

Elsewhere in Baghdad, some Sunnis marked the start of the holiday by visiting cemeteries and kneeling and praying at the graves of their relatives.

The timing of this year's Eid holiday also is another sign of the deep divisions that developed between minority Sunnis and majority Shiites under Saddam, a Sunni who persecuted many Shiites during his rule.

The months of the Muslim calendar are lunar. Therefore, they start when the new moon is spotted in the sky by a trustworthy members of the community. Based on that procedure, Sunni clerics decided that Eid would begin on Thursday this year, while Shiites chose Friday.

Those differences were obvious at the Kazimiyah shrine in Baghdad on Thursday, where Shiite cleric Hazimal Araji, waving a rifle in the air, led a large crowd of Shiite worshippers chanting for the liberation of Iraq — not from U.S. forces, from Sunni insurgents.