Four injured in helicopter crash

Baghdad: The US military said an army helicopter with nine personnel on board went down south of Baghdad yesterday, and four personnel were injured.

A statement did not give the cause of the incident or any other details. Witnesses reported seeing heavy gunfire force the aircraft down in an insurgent stronghold near Latifiya, 40km south of Baghdad.

Witnesses had earlier said the aircraft appeared to be an Apache attack helicopter, but the number of personnel on board indicates it would be a transport helicopter.

"I saw a helicopter in the sky, then I heard heavy gunfire," said one witness. "I saw the helicopter move right and left before landing hard. It did not explode."

Insurgents shot down eight helicopters during a month-long period earlier this year, killing 28 people, mainly American soldiers. Six were US military helicopters and two belonged to a private American security firm.

Scholars set up body

Meanwhile, Iraqi Sunni scholars meeting in Jordan set up a body that would have the sole authority to issue fatwas, or religious edicts, while also urging an end to the US occupation of Iraq through "legal means."

The two-day meeting of the Sunni Religious Affairs Council, or Waqf - the fifth in four years - was held in Jordan because of safety concerns. It was attended by about 150 scholars.

The council was formed after the US-led war, when Iraq's ministry for religious affairs was dissolved and replaced by separate councils, or Waqfs, for the Shiite, the Sunni and other religions.

Yesterday, the gathering formed a body that would be the sole authority among Iraqi Sunnis in issuing fatwas, the scholars said in a statement. The move was an attempt to pre-empt fatwas issued by those without the required scholarly qualifications.

120 fighters held

The scholars' statement said the new Convention Council for Iraq's Ulama will fill the gap in the field of Fiqh and Sharia, or Muslim legislation and ideology.

In Algeria, authorities are holding 120 men on suspicion of involvement in the insurgency in Iraq, a newspaper reported yesterday.

Top-selling El Khabar said most of those in custody belonged to the Al Qaida organisation in the Islamic Maghreb, a group of Algerian Islamist insurgents that has carried out bomb attacks on police and Western expatriates in Algeria in recent months.

Citing judicial sources, the daily said the 120 Algerians were variously suspected of having fought in Iraq, planning to travel to Iraq to take part in the conflict there or of recruiting Algerians to participate in the conflict.

The 120, aged between 18 and 30, face charges including "membership of a terrorist group and belonging to a terrorist group operating at home and abroad", the daily said. They are due to go on trial later this year, it said.

Some of the detainees had travelled to Iraq by way of Syria, the newspaper said.