Two US soldiers were killed in Iraq when their helicopter crashed after being shot at north of Baghdad, the US military said in a statement today.
Two helicopters came under small arms fire near Baquba 60 km (40 miles) north of Baghdad last night, the US military said.
One crashed while the other sustained damage but landed safely at a US base. "Two Task Force Liberty soldiers were killed when their helicopter crashed near Baquba on May 26th," the statement said.
"Coalition forces responded to the scene and secured the site."
A defence official at the Pentagon in Washington said the aircraft that went down was an OH-58 Kiowa, a single-engine two-seater helicopter.
The killing brings to at least 1,649 the number of American military personnel who have lost their lives in Iraq since the US-led invasion in March 2003.
Insurgents, who appear to have launched a fresh wave of violence in Iraq, frequently fire on US aircraft and have brought down several helicopters before.
Iraqi ministers said yesterday the government would pour tens of thousands of Iraqi troops into Baghdad in an unprecedented operation to seal off the city and hunt insurgents.
Defence Minister Sadoun al-Dulaimi said 40,000 Iraqi troops would be deployed in Baghdad for Operation Thunder, the biggest Iraqi military operation since the fall of Saddam Hussein. Backed by the 10,000 US troops in Baghdad, they will set up hundreds of checkpoints and block roads into the capital.
The move comes a day after US forces launched Operation New Market, a security sweep in the town of Haditha, 200 km (125 miles) northwest of Baghdad, where 1,000 US Marines and sailors, backed by Iraqi troops, are searching for militants.
Operation New Market is the second major offensive in the area this month as US and Iraqi forces step up their hunt for followers of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian militant who heads Al Qaeda's network in Iraq.