Two U.S. Marine pilots were killed when their AH-1W Super Cobra attack helicopter crashed in central Iraq

DOHA, April 5 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - A U.S. AH-1W "Super Cobra" attack helicopter crashed in central Iraq in the small hours of Saturday, April 5, killing two pilots, the U.S. Central Command confirmed.

"Preliminary indications are that the crash was not a result of hostile fire," a statement claimed, adding the "cause of the crash is under investigation."

The Central Command withheld the names of the two pilots pending next-of-kin notification, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

Pentagon Confirms 9  Other Causalities

Nine bodies recovered during a reported mission to rescue a U.S. Army private held in southern Iraq are believed to be those of U.S. soldiers, a U.S. military spokeswoman said Saturday.

"We believe nine were American," Major Rumi Nielson-Green confirmed.

U.S. forces reportedly discovered 11 bodies in a hospital in the southern Iraqi city of Nasiriyah during an operation in the early hours of April 2 to free army private Jessica Lynch, who had been held prisoner for more than a week.

"We believe the other two bodies were Iraqi and they have been returned to the hospital from whence they came," Nielson-Green said.

Before the new disclosures, a Pentagon official reported late Friday, April 4, that the United States has lost 67 troops in the U.S.-led war on Iraq, 54 of them in combat or by "friendly fire."

The other 13 were killed in accidents or, in the case of two, in a grenade attack in a camp in Kuwait by another U.S. soldier who has been charged with murder.

The Pentagon also acknowledged Iraqi forces were holding seven prisoners of war.

Sixteen U.S. troops are reported missing, a category which often means it has not been determined whether they have been killed or taken prisoner.

The Pentagon also said that a total of 154 U.S. servicemen are listed as wounded, claiming that U.S. forces were holding some 6,000 Iraqis prisoner.

The Pentagon's latest casualty figure includes the pilot of an F/A-18 Hornet jet shot down late Wednesday, April 2, over Iraq.

"A U.S. Navy F/A-18C, a single-seat aircraft off of the USS Kitty Hawk, went down at approximately 3:45 p.m. EST today (2045 GMT Wednesday) during ongoing coalition air operations in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom," said the statement released at Centcom's forward operating base in Qatar.