Seven U.S. soldiers were killed following the crash of their helicopter in southern Iraq, a hundred miles west of the naval base in Basra has announced a spokesman for the U.S. command, ensuring that are the causes of the accident, which still seems have been caused by a mechanical failure, would be excluded instead of the guerrilla attack from the ground.
The helicopter, a Chinook CH-47 transport, was part of a convoy transported in aviation-trip travel from Kuwait to Balad Air Base, north of Baghdad. There were no survivors on board, while in the first two of the victims had been reported missing. A representative of the British contingent stationed in Basra, the more Paul Smyth, said at the crash site was immediately sent a detachment of special forces, and that there was also hijacked a motorized column in transit in the vicinity, are in place U.S. troops also engaged in operations recovery of the bodies.
A bad omen for the handover to the top of the device between the U.S. military general David Petraeus and his successor, Raymond Odierno peers, dating back to just two days ago. This is the worst accident in Iraq in a helicopter of the United States since August 2007, when it crashed in the north and a BlackHawk fourteen soldiers were killed. Since March 2003, the beginning of the invasion to topple Saddam Hussein, the episodes were similar in all 69, 36 of them due to attacks from the ground. At the same time the American casualties in Iraq amounted to at least 4168, including seven civilian employees of the Pentagon, most of the victims have fallen in action, not by accident.
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