Iraq Watch: May 6, 2006

British Helicopter Downed in Basra

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A British military helicopter was reportedly downed by enemy fire in the southern Iraqi city of Basra Saturday.

A large crowd of onlookers amassed at the scene of the crash in the predominately Shiite city, which is home to over 1.5 million. The crowd heckled and threw stones and Molotov cocktails at British troops who cordoned off the crash site. At least three British military armored vehicles were set on fire in the confrontation.

Many of the protestors chanted slogans praising maverick Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and his militia, the al-Mahdi Army.

In response, British soldiers opened fire on the virulent crowd killing at least four people and wounding over 30.

Britain's Ministry of Defense (MoD) admitted that there were causalities but gave no specific figures, however, various news outlets reported that four British airmen were killed in the helicopter crash.

Bordering along the Shatt al-Arab waterway, Basra, oppressed under the iron-fisted rule of Sunni President Saddam Hussein, was initially fairly accepting and even appreciative of U.S.-led foreign forces during the early stages of the Iraq conflict.

The city, however, has turned increasingly xenophobic and violent in recent months. Powerful Shiite militias, such as Muqtada al-Sadr's aforementioned al-Mahdi Army as well as the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq's (SCIRI) Badr Brigade, have rose to prominence in Basra and other Shiite enclaves across the war-torn nation.

Elsewhere, a suicide bomber strategically struck an Iraqi army base near the city of Tikrit, north of Baghdad. The bomber, wearing an Iraqi army uniform, meandered inside the base and detonated his explosives killing a lieutenant colonel, a major, and a lieutenant. Another lieutenant colonel was injured in the blast.

In other violence, two Iraqi policemen and an Iraqi soldier were killed in a car bombing north of Baqouba.

In another grisly yet increasingly common discovery, Iraqi authorities found the corpses of at least 18 men throughout Baghdad Saturday. Two more bodies were found in the oil-rich city of Mosul, 225 miles northwest of the capital. Thousands of executed bodies, apparent victims of sectarian tit-for-tat killings, have shown up across Iraq since the February 22 bombing of the revered Shiite Askariya shrine in Samarra.

Meanwhile, the U.S. military announced the death of a U.S. soldier who was killed yesterday by an IED in Baghdad.