Car bomb kills 8 at Baghdad mosque

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- A car bomb ripped through a crowded mosque during Friday prayers, killing eight people and wounding 26 in the latest attack targeting Iraq's Shiite majority. Frantic worshippers searched through rubble for loved ones, and women wailed and beat their chests in grief.

The U.S. military sent investigators to the grassy field north of Baghdad where a helicopter carrying 11 civilians was shot down Thursday. A video posted on a militant Web site suggested insurgents gunned down the lone survivor of the crash, and the Bulgarian company that owns the helicopter confirmed Friday the man seen in the footage was indeed one of the aircraft's pilots.

The violence was part of a surge of attacks that have caused heavy casualties in recent weeks.

One U.S. soldier was killed Friday by a roadside bomb north of Tal Afar, 95 miles east of the Syrian border, the military said. On Thursday, a U.S. Marine died in a nonhostile incident at Camp Delta, near Karmah, 50 miles west of Baghdad, the military said. More than 1,500 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war two years ago.

The car bomb exploded at Al-Subeih mosque, in the capital's Shiite-dominated New Baghdad neighborhood, said police Col. Ahmed Aboud. Witnesses said the vehicle used in the attack had been parked outside the building since the morning.

A 10-year-old child was among the eight people killed, and the 26 wounded included two 9-year-olds, hospital officials said.

Body parts were strewn at the scene among piles of bricks, shattered glass and pools of blood. One man clutched a child's foot, shaking and weeping.

"This is a cowardly and savage act that aims to create conflict among Iraqis," said Abdelallah Faraj, a grocer who survived the attack.

Shiite mosques and funerals have become a frequent target of Sunni-led insurgents. In February, suicide bombers attacked a number of them during the Shiite commemoration of Ashoura, killing nearly 100 people. In recent weeks, police have pulled dozens of bodies from the Tigris River in a region south of Baghdad that has seen retaliatory kidnappings and killings by Shiite and Sunni groups.

North of the capital, Col. Paul Bricker led a team of investigators who surveyed the site where the helicopter crashed Thursday, the military said.

The chartered flight between Baghdad and Tikrit was believed to be the first civilian aircraft shot down in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003. A spokesman for U.S. forces in Iraq said an American medevac team arrived at the site within a half hour of Thursday's crash and found no survivors.

The dead included six American bodyguards for U.S. diplomats, three Bulgarian crew and two security guards from Fiji, officials said.

Their bodies were taken to Balad Air Base, and an aircraft recovery team from the 3rd Infantry Division was moving the wreckage of the helicopter to Baghdad International Airport for further inspection, the military said.

Two militant groups claimed responsibility for shooting down the Russian-made Mi-8 helicopter and released video to support their claims.

A group calling itself the Islamic Army in Iraq posted footage on the Internet purporting to show militants capturing and shooting the lone survivor, found lying in the grass near burning wreckage and charred bodies.

Mihail Mihailov, the manager of Heli Air, the Bulgarian owner of the helicopter, identified the man in the footage as Lyubomir Kostov, one of the aircraft's two pilots.

Al-Jazeera broadcast another video from a group calling itself the Mujahedeen Army in Iraq that showed the helicopter flying about 100 feet above the ground. At one point, the camera suddenly shook, swinging down to show the ground near the cameraman's feet -- apparently as a missile hit the helicopter.

When the camera turned back toward the sky, the helicopter was in flames, arcing toward the ground and trailing a pall of black smoke.

There was no independent confirmation of the authenticity of either video.

Toronto-based SkyLink Aviation Inc. chartered the helicopter, and the six Americans were employed by Blackwater Security Consulting, a subsidiary of North Carolina-based security contractor Blackwater USA.

Both companies were invited to participate in the inquiry, the military said. But Blackwater said it would not be involved as the helicopter did not belong to the company and wasn't flown by its employees.

The Bulgarian government and Heli Air said they were sending investigators.

The hostage video showed the three Romanians -- two men and a woman -- sitting cross-legged against a wall with their hands chained. A man said to be their translator was shown sitting alone, hands bound. Gunmen stood on either side of him, pointing an automatic rifle and a pistol at his head.

Journalists Marie Jeanne Ion, Sorin Dumitru Miscoci and Ovidiu Ohanesian were kidnapped with their translator, Mohammed Monaf, on March 28 near their Baghdad hotel shortly after interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi. They appeared a day later in a video aired on Al-Jazeera.

In the footage broadcast Friday, Ion is seen talking. Al-Jazeera did not air the audio.

More than 200 foreigners have been kidnapped in Iraq since April 2004, and at least 17 are believed to still be in the hands of their captors. More than 30 others were killed by their kidnappers.