U.S. & World

BAGHDAD (CBS News) ― The U.S. military believes all seven people aboard a CH-46 helicopter that crashed in Iraq on Wednesday were killed, and indications are that it was not hit by hostile fire, a senior U.S. defense official said.

That's despite claims of responsibility by a group of al Qaeda-linked Sunni insurgents.

The U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation was still under way, said the helicopter went down between Baghdad and Fallujah and that the crash appeared to have been related to mechanical problems.

In Baghdad, an Iraqi air force officer said it was downed by an anti-aircraft missile.

The CH-46 was operated by Marines, and other Marine aircraft were in visual contact at the time it went down, the U.S. official said. He said he did not know whether a distress signal was communicated by radio.

A claim of responsibility for downing the helicopter was issued in an Internet statement signed by the Islamic State in Iraq, an umbrella group of several Sunni insurgent groups, including al Qaeda in Iraq. The authenticity of the statement - posted on a Web forum where the group often issues statements - could not be independently confirmed.

"By God's grace, the downing of a helicopter of the crusaders was accomplished on Wednesday morning near the Karamah in Anbar province, leading to its destruction and the deaths of all those on board," the Islamic State in Iraq statement said.

It identified the downed helicopter as a Chinook. The Marine Corps' Sea Knight transport helicopter, with its pair of rotors, resembles the Army Chinook, though is slightly smaller.

The statement said the group would issue a video of the copter's downing in a later message.

CBS News chief foreign correspondent Lara Logan reports witnesses said a helicopter had gone down in a field in the Sheik Amir area northwest of Baghdad, sending smoke rising from the scene.

"The helicopter was flying and passed over us, then we heard the firing of a missile," said Mohammad al-Janabi, a farmer who was speaking less than a kilometer (half a mile) from the wreckage. "The helicopter, then, turned into a ball of fire. It flew in a circle twice, then it went down."

The helicopter went down five days after a U.S. Army helicopter crashed in a hail of gunfire north of Baghdad, police and witnesses said. The U.S. command said two crew members were killed in that crash, and the al-Qaida-affiliated group the Islamic State of Iraq claimed responsibility.

Three other helicopters also have gone down since Jan. 20 killing a total of 19 Americans - 14 troops and five civilian security contractors.

Military officials also announced the deaths of two more troops Wednesday, including a soldier killed Tuesday by small arms fire at a security post southwest of Baghdad, and a Marine who died Monday in Anbar province, west of the capital.

At least 51 Iraqis also were killed or found dead around the country, including eight slain by two car bombs in Baghdad.

In other developments:

• Iraqi police found the bullet-riddled bodies of 33 people - 19 in Baghdad - apparent victims of sectarian death squads. The Shiite-led Iraqi government has pledged to go after the mainly Shiite militias largely blamed for such killings as well as Sunni insurgents suspected in most of the bombings, including a suicide attack on a Baghdad food market Saturday that killed at least 137 people.

• A judge Wednesday ordered a U.S. soldier to stand trial in absentia for the fatal shooting of an Italian intelligence agent at a checkpoint in Baghdad, the prosecutor said. Spc. Mario Lozano is indicted for murder and attempted murder in the death of Nicola Calipari, who was shot on March 4, 2005, on his way to the Baghdad airport shortly after securing the release of an Italian journalist who had been kidnapped in the Iraqi capital, prosecutor Pietro Saviotti said.

• In power barely a month, Democratic critics of the war in Iraq are moving unmistakably toward a clash between Congress and the commander in chief. They disclosed plans Tuesday for a symbolic rejection by the House of President Bush's decision to deploy additional troops and filed legislation in the Senate to require withdrawal of U.S. military personnel.

• L. Paul Bremer III, who was head of the Coalition Provisional Authority, said he had done the best he could to kickstart the Iraqi economy, which he said was "flat on its back" after years of rule by Saddam Hussein followed by the U.S.-led invasion. He said the 363 tons of cash loaded onto airplanes and sent into the war zone in 2003 was money that belonged to Iraqis and had come from the U.N.-run oil-for-food program and from seized Iraqi assets.

• Iran condemned Sunday's abduction of an Iranian diplomat as he drove through Baghdad, saying it held the United States responsible for the diplomat's "safety and life." One Iraqi government official said the Iranian was detained Sunday by an Iraqi army unit that reports directly to the U.S. military. A military spokesman denied any U.S. troops or Iraqis that report to them were involved.

Meanwhile, the long-awaited Baghdad security operation has begun, the top U.S. military spokesman in Iraq said Wednesday.

The Iraqi general who is leading the security drive took over the operation headquarters on Monday, but there had been no announcement until Wednesday that the sweep, the third attempt to crush violence in nine months, was under way.
"It is ongoing as we speak," U.S. military spokesman Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell said. "The implementation of the prime minister's plan has already begun and will be fully implemented at a later date, having all the parts and pieces that he wants.

"But portions are already being put in place, and we'll continue to put more into place as the forces arrive and the assets become available."

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki complained Tuesday that the operation was off to a slow start and warned that insurgents are taking advantage of the delay to kill as many people as possible.

But he also reassured Iraqis that security forces will live up to their responsibilities.

The statement came as new checkpoints were erected and increased vehicle inspections and foot patrols were reported in some neighborhoods - providing the main evidence so far that U.S. and Iraqi forces were gearing up for a major neighborhood-to-neighborhood sweep to quell sectarian violence in the city of 6 million.

"The operations will unite us and we will take action soon, God willing, even though I believe we've been very late and this delay has started to give a negative message," al-Maliki said in a meeting with military commanders shown on state TV. "I hope that more efforts will be exerted and more speed exerted in carrying out and achieving all the preparations to start the operations."

"We should carry out the operation in good time and should not delay, because the delay will be used against us by the enemies ... and those who are afraid of them," he added.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Tuesday the increase in U.S. forces in Iraq is "not the last chance" to succeed and conceded he was considering what steps to take if the buildup fails.

"I would be irresponsible if I weren't thinking about what the alternatives might be," he told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Gates said the operation was to have started Monday. "It's probably going to slip a few days, and it's probably going to be a rolling implementation," he said.

Al-Maliki, who has seen sectarian violence rise since taking office May 20, 2006, despite two previous efforts to secure the capital, declared that Iraqi forces will live up to their responsibilities and told his commanders they must not disappoint those "who stand beside us."

"As far as the security issue is concerned, we should be determined and committed. We should carry out the operation on time and should not delay because the delay will be used against us by our enemies," he added.

(© 2007 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)