US admits helicopters shot down
A US military spokesman has said publicly for the
first time that the four US helicopters downed in Iraq in the past two weeks
were shot down, confirming earlier witness reports and leaks from within the US
military.
SA-7 circa 1968
A US military spokesman has said publicly for the first time that the four US helicopters downed in Iraq in the past two weeks were shot down, confirming earlier witness reports and leaks from within the US military.
Twenty-one US soldiers and private security contractors were killed in the four separate incidents.
On Sunday Major-General William Caldwell said: “There has been an ongoing effort to target our helicopters. We have had four helicopters shot down … It appears they were the result of some kind of ground fire.”
In December, a spokesman for Khudair al-Murshidi, Saddam Hussein’s ousted Baath party, told The Associated Press in Damascus, Syria, that Sunni fighters had received shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles and “we are going to surprise them”, meaning US forces.
So, it shouldn’t have been a surprise, right? What we can expect next is more punk whining about “sophisticated weapons” smuggled in from Iran or Syria.
The SA-7 is as ubiquitous as the RPG-7 on the streets of the Middle East. Has been for decades. Cripes, they’re still being manufactured in Pakistan. Insurgents [pre 9/11] tended to ignore them because they usually got hotter performance from the goodies given away by Uncle Sugar.
Posted: Mon - February 5, 2007 at 06:14 AM