By DPA,
Baghdad : Seven US soldiers were killed when their helicopter crashed west of the southern Iraqi city of Basra, the US army said Thursday.
The Chinook helicopter, which had been en route from Kuwait to the military base in Balad north of Baghdad, had not come under fire and the crash appeared to have been an accident, the army said in a statement also correcting an initial death toll of five. Iraq media also reported the crash.
The military also reported that another two US soldiers were shot near a base in Iskandariyah south of Baghdad last Sunday. They were believed to have been killed by a US soldier who had been arrested, the army said without giving further details.
In a separate incidence, the Iraqi news agency Aswat al-Iraq reported that the bodies of two men were found near the southern city of Naziriyah. The men died when the bomb they tried to place near a road block blew up early, the report said.
In Mosul, 400 kM north of Baghdad, an adviser to the governor of Ninive province was shot as he left a mosque Wednesday night, the news wire reported.