Four killed as U.S. helicopter crashes near Tikrit...

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- All six soldiers aboard a U.S. Black Hawk helicopter were killed Friday when the aircraft crashed near Saddam Hussein's ancestral homeland of Tikrit, according to a U.S. military spokeswoman.

"We can confirm all six onboard are dead," said Maj. Josslyn Aberle of the 4th Infantry Division.

Local Iraqis blamed the crash on ground fire, a senior U.S. military official said. The cause of the crash remains under investigation.

The Black Hawk went down about 9:20 a.m. (1:20 a.m. EST). Traveling with the copter, a second Black Hawk did not notice any hostile fire beforehand, Aberle said.

The helicopter was engulfed in flames after it crashed, according to reports from the second aircraft. The Black Hawks were en route to Camp Ironhorse, the main U.S. military base in Tikrit. The town is about 100 miles (160 kilometers) north-northwest of Baghdad.

The military has secured the crash site, Aberle said.

The crash comes a day after a somber memorial service for 15 U.S. service members killed when a CH-47 Chinook helicopter went down Sunday in Fallujah in an apparent missile strike. A 16th soldier died Thursday of injuries suffered in the attack, the Pentagon said.

A Defense Department statement said the soldier, Sgt. Paul F. Fisher, 39, of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, died at a hospital in Germany.

If confirmed as a hostile attack, Friday's incident in Tikrit would be the third U.S. helicopter downed in the two weeks. On October 25, rocket-propelled grenades attacked a Black Hawk helicopter near Tikrit, hours after Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz visited the area. One soldier was wounded.

In further violence Friday, assailants ambushed a U.S. military convoy in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, killing one U.S. soldier and wounding six, according to the Coalition Press Information Center and Army's 101st Airborne Division.

The 101st convoy was hit by rocket-propelled grenades and small-arms fire about 7 a.m. (11 p.m. Thursday EST) in the eastern part of Mosul, a 101st spokesman said.

The ambush was the second fatal attack on U.S. forces in the area in less than a day. Coalition officials reported Friday that an explosive device hit a U.S. military convoy Thursday near Mosul, killing one soldier and wounding two others.

The soldier who died also was attached to the 101st Airborne Division.

An improvised explosive device hit the convoy shortly before 11 a.m. (3 a.m. EST) as it traveled on a highway east of the city, according to a coalition statement.

Since the war began in March, 387 U.S. troops have died, including 260 as a result of hostile fire. Two hundred forty-eight have died after President Bush declared an end to major combat on May 1, including 145 from hostile fire.

Chinook fired flare in attempt to evade missile
The Chinook helicopter that crashed Sunday fired at least one flare in an attempt to evade the heat-seeking missile that brought it down, a senior Army official said Thursday.

The unconfirmed reports came from crash survivors, troops in a trailing helicopter and witnesses on the ground

It is the first indication that the helicopter crew was able to make an attempt to evade the missile.

It follows criticism from U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, that suggested the transport helicopter wasn't fully armored for defense.

Witnesses reported seeing surface-to-air missile plumes before the aircraft went down, and the crash is under investigation, military officials said.

Durbin sent a letter to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld asking whether the craft "had on board a fully operational ALQ-156 system with an automatic flare dispenser and whether it had seat armor."

An ALQ-156 system fires flares that lure a heat-seeking missile away from an aircraft's engines. Seat armor protects the pilots.

A coalition official said Wednesday that the helicopter was equipped with a key missile defense system.

The helicopter was flying at 200 to 300 feet, and the crew may not have had enough time to evade the missile.

At an air base west of Baghdad, hundreds of soldiers attended the service Thursday for those who died in the crash. Combat helmets -- one representing each of the dead -- were placed on standing rifles on the back of a flatbed truck.

Also Thursday, U.S. Central Command announced the deaths of two additional soldiers. One soldier was killed and two wounded Wednesday night when their patrol was ambushed 20 miles (32 kilometers) south of Baghdad, Central Command said. On Thursday morning, a soldier was killed when his military truck ran over a landmine near Iraq's Husaybah border crossing into Syria, according to Central Command.

There is no reliable source for Iraqi civilian or combatant casualty figures, either during the period of major combat or after May 1. The Associated Press reported an estimated 3,240 civilian Iraqi deaths between March 20 and April 20, but the AP said that the figure was based on records of only half of Iraq's hospitals and the actual number was thought to be significantly higher.

Troop rotation ordered

The Pentagon will order about 128,000 U.S. troops to Iraq in early 2004 to replace forces rotating back to their home bases after a yearlong tour of duty, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Thursday.

"The combat units serving in Iraq and most of the supporting units serving in the theater will be replaced," Rumsfeld said.

About 85,000 combat troops, including three National Guard combat brigades, have been notified they will be sent to the Iraq region, and 43,000 other Reserve and National Guard troops have been told they will be activated, Pentagon sources said.

Pentagon officials said it may be days before the public learns which Army National Guard and Reserve units face call-ups.

Active duty forces will include the 1st Infantry Division from Germany, 1st Cavalry Division from Texas and 1st Marine Expeditionary Force from Camp Pendleton, California, Pentagon sources said. The Marine unit recently returned from Iraq, but Marine Corps officials said many of the unit members will be new because of routine turnover.

The units in Iraq expected to come home early next year are the 101st Airborne, 4th Infantry, 1st Armored and 82nd Airborne divisions.

The Bush administration had hoped to form a third multinational division, but that did not materialize. Poland and Britain lead divisions.