IRAQ: Guerrillas shot down a US military helicopter in central Iraq yesterday, killing one pilot and injuring another, while ethnic tensions flared again in the northern city of Kirkuk, leading to at least one death.
In Baghdad, hundreds of people held an angry demonstration following a military raid on a mosque during which they say the Koran was defiled.
The US Central Command said the OH-58 Kiowa observation helicopter was brought down by enemy fire about 50 km west of Baghdad near the volatile town of Falluja.
A policeman who saw the crash said the helicopter was hit by a missile. "We were in a joint patrol with US troops to remove land mines and I saw a helicopter hovering in the sky which was hit by a missile," policeman Mohammad Abdul Aziz said.
Insurgents have shot down several US helicopters in recent months, including three Black Hawks and a Chinook transporter in November, killing a total of 39 US soldiers.
Falluja is at the heart of the so-called Sunni triangle, a region north and west of Baghdad, which has seen near-constant attacks on US forces since the toppling of Saddam Hussein in April.
The latest death brings to 328 the number of US servicemen killed in action since the invasion of Iraq in March. In Kirkuk, at least one man was killed and another was wounded overnight as police and protesters clashed in the ethnically divided city where Kurds, Arabs and Turkish-speaking Turkmen are all bidding for more political say. In the northern city of Mosul, Iraqi police said assassins stabbed and shot a politics professor after luring him from his home, in the latest murder of a prominent figure in city.
In Baghdad, the US military said forces had raided the al-Tabool mosque. "Over recent months, the US 1st Armoured Division has received numerous reports from Iraqis that the al-Tabool mosque was being used for criminal and terrorist activities," Brig Gen Mark Kimmitt said, adding that several arms including guns, explosives and rocket launchers, were seized.
But the Imam of the mosque, Abdulsatar al-Janabi, said the mosque was peaceful and described the raid as part of a US persecution of Sunnis. He said the weapons seized were only some light rifles kept for self-defence.
"American soldiers entered the mosque with their shoes on and with machine guns in their hands," he said. "They trampled on the holy Koran, beat up some of the worshippers and stole computers and a donations box," he added. Others said a page was torn from the Koran, the Muslim holy book.
But Brig Gen Kimmitt said troops had been careful to respect the sanctity of the building. - (Reuters)