BAGHDAD (AP):
A UNITED States army Black Hawk helicopter crashed and killed all 12 Americans believed to be aboard, while five marines died in weekend attacks.
The mounting death toll, about two hundred Iraqis were killed and a dozen U.S. troops were slain last week, came as Iraq's politicians claimed headway in forming a stable coalition government following the December 15 elections - whose final results may be released this week.
Meanwhile, Iraqi police said 52-year-old kidnapped French engineer Bernard Planche was pushed out of a car near a checkpoint in a Baghdad suburb, apparently freed by nervous captors who then fled, Iraqi police said yesterday.
Planche, 52, was kidnapped on December 5, on his way to work at a water plant. Planche worked for a non-governmental organisation called AACCESS and was found Saturday night near the checkpoint in the Abu Ghraib neighborhood. His captors had demanded the withdrawal from Iraq of nonexistent French troops.
CRASH CAUSE UNKNOWN
The UH-60 Black Hawk crashed just before midnight Saturday about 15 kilometres (seven miles) east of Tal Afar, a northern city near the Syrian border that has in the past seen heavy fighting with insurgents.
The cause of the crash has not been determined.
It was the deadliest helicopter crash in Iraq since a CH-53 Sea Stallion crashed in bad weather in western Iraq on January 26, 2005, killing 31 U.S. service members.
Three marines were killed yesterday by small arms attacks in Fallujah, 70 kilometres (40 miles) west of Baghdad, the military said. Two other Marines were killed Saturday by roadside bombs in separate incidents, the military said.
With the latest marine deaths, over 2,200 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the war in 2003, according to an Associated Press count.
