Wednesday, Feb 02, 2005
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By Hasan Suroor
LONDON, FEB 1. The euphoria, here, following Sunday's elections in Iraq has been marred by the death of 10 British soldiers in a mysterious military plane crash raising fears over the security situation there. Official circles on Tuesday attempted to play down claims by an Iraqi resistance group that it had shot down the Royal Air Force transport aircraft during a short journey from Baghdad to a U.S. air base in Balad. There were also reports that the crash might have been caused by an "on-board explosion'' but the official line was that it would be wrong to speculate while investigations were still on. Geof Hoon, Secretary of State for Defence, said: "We are aware of reports that the aircraft may have been shot down but we are not in a position to come to any conclusion until the investigation is complete.'' The chief of air staff Jock Stirrup acknowledged that there was a "great deal of speculation'' especially after a video, purporting to be of a missile shooting down an aircraft, was shown on Al-Jazeera.
New level of threat
Experts said that if the claim by the 1920 Revolution Brigade of the National Islamic Resistance of Iraq that it had brought down the aircraft was true then it represented a new level of threat suggesting that anti-occupation groups had acquired what The Times described as "a deadly new weapon to use against aircraft.'' They recalled that a U.S. Marines helicopter crashed only a week ago killing 31 soldiers.
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