An Italian military helicopter has crashed in Iraq, killing the four people aboard, the Italian military said Tuesday.
The copter crashed overnight about eight miles southeast of Nasiriyah, the southern Iraqi city where Italy's 3,000 troops are based. The cause was not clear.
Meanwhile, violence in Iraq continued Tuesday, as a car bomb in Baqouba exploded next to a pick-up truck carrying Iraqi soldiers. According to reports, at least two soldiers were killed and two injured.
Elsewhere, the governor of western Iraq's Anbar province has been killed during clashes between U.S. forces and the fighters who abducted him, the Iraqi government said Tuesday.
Government spokesman Laith Kuba said the body of Raja Nawaf Farhan al-Mahalawi, who was abducted on May 10, was found two days ago in the village of Rawah, about 175 miles northwest of Baghdad.
The U.S. military confirmed his death and that his family had identified his body on Tuesday in Qaim, an Iraqi city near the Syrian border, which was the scene of a major U.S. offensive earlier this month.
A military spokesman said a U.S. helicopter had flown al-Mahalawi's body to Qaim on Monday. He did not elaborate on how he was killed nor when his body was found.
Al-Mahalawi was found tied to a gas cylinder inside a house following a fierce gun battle between U.S. forces and fighters holed up in the house, Kuba, the Iraqi government spokesman, said.
Elsewhere, gunmen shot and killed Jerges Mohammed Sultan, an Iraqi journalist working for Iraqi state TV channel Al-Iraqiya, as he left his house in the northern city of Mosul.
© 2005 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
