U.S. helicopter down north of Baghdad: residents

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A U.S. Apache helicopter went down north of Baghdad on Sunday, local residents said, but the U.S. military said it was not aware of any such incident.

Residents reported seeing a missile hit the attack helicopter, which carries two crew, bringing it down in the Timayma area, near Taji, site of a major U.S. air base 20 km (12 miles) north of Baghdad.

U.S. military spokeswoman Lieutenant-Colonel Josslyn Aberle said she had no information on a helicopter crashing in the area.

If confirmed it would be the seventh U.S. helicopter to have come down in Iraq in the last three weeks. The U.S. military has confirmed that at least four of those were shot down after being struck by ground fire and says it has adjusted its tactics accordingly.

In discussing the recent rash of lost helicopters in Iraq, we offered several possibilities: bad maintenance (faulty and insufficient care), bad tactical usage (repetitive patterns), bad enemy (more aggressive and smarter tactics) and let’s face it – bad luck. All of these causes must logically be included in any treatment of the problem in order to find solutions. To dismiss the sudden frequency as statistical outliers, as GEN Cody recently did, is at best short-sighted and poor logic, and may in fact be short-changing the troops, as well as the taxpayers.

And of course, the soft muffled drumbeat of Iran as the cause of all American mishaps in Iraq is scheduled to be brought to a louder, more urgent tempo as the US continues preparing its forces for the pre-emptive attack against that country demanded by the Likudnik operatives that control our nation’s foreign policy.

Today’s IraqSlogger brings out a point that has not been made public by CENTCOM:

Although today is judgement day for Iran, arms experts are looking a little deeper into some of the assumptions that will be made.

The recent rash of helicopter shoot downs in Iraq seems to point towards either bad luck, bad tactics or better weapons used by the insurgents. What is clear is that the United States has focused on Iran as an instigator, supporter and trainer of Shia militias. But once again looking closer reveals that the helo shoot downs were in Sunni neighborhoods not Shia areas. The claims of shoot downs have come from Sunni organizations like the Feb 7 from the Islamic State in Iraq, an umbrella group of Iraqi insurgent organizations. Beirut via Syria would be a likely entry point for Russian made made [sic] weapons that can be used by Sunnis. Iran has supplied the [S]hia Hizbullah in Beirut with surface to air missiles against Israel. Weapons could also be flown in via Kurdistan, smuggled northward from Kuwait and just about anywhere on Iraq's porous borders.

The geographic location of the losses is a point that cannot be stressed too much; it is the height of folly and arrogance to attempt to claim that Sunni resisters are receiving financial or logistical aid from Shia Iraqis or Iranians. If the two religious groups are capable of such cooperation why are they killing each other in daily attacks of ethnic cleansing?

A second noteworthy point is that the claim that “Iranian” surface to air missiles supposedly supplied to Hezbollah for use against Israeli helicopters in last summer’s unsuccessful incursion into Lebanon were apparently not of Iranian manufacture.

An Al Jazeera article dated last August states that the Israeli helicopter was shot down with a missile called the “Waad.”

Hezbollah fighters have shot down an Israeli helicopter in south Lebanon and killed at least 19 Israeli soldiers, as fighting continues ahead of a ceasefire.

Five Israeli aircrew were missing and presumed dead after the helicopter was reportedly shot down by a new type of missile on Saturday night in the Lebanese town of Yater 6 km (4 miles) north of the border.

……

Hezbollah says that the helicopter was shot down by a new type of missile called the 'Waad'

A trace through Wikipedia, which borrows its material in this case from Janes Defense, identifies the “Waad” as a retitled Chinese QW-2 Qianwei "Vanguard" and is considered a copy of the Russian MANPAD known as the SA-16.

That's a Chinese MANPAD, not an Iranian manufacture.

The Sunnis have driven the resistance in Iraq. The Sunnis developed the IED and VBIED as anti-personnel and anti-vehicle weapons that have caused the majority of US occupation casualties. It is the Sunni and foreign elements have kept up their pressure on the U.S. military, not the Shia, who are Iranian proxy clients.