By LOURDES NAVARRO, Associated Press Writer FALLUJAH, Iraq - Gunmen shot down a U.S. attack helicopter during fighting in western Baghdad on Sunday, killing its two crew members. Insurgents and Marines called a cease-fire in the besieged city of Fallujah, but the fragile peace was shaken by a gunbattle that wounded two Americans.
A pall of black smoke rose on Baghdad's western edge where a military
spokesman said the AH-64 Apache helicopter was downed by ground fire in the
morning. More helicopters circled overhead, while U.S. troops closed off the
main highway � a key supply route into the capital.
Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt told a news briefing Sunday that the two-member crew
was killed and a quick-reaction team was collecting the bodies.
Heavy firing was heard, and tanks and Humvees moved into the area near the
suburb of Abu Ghraib, where masked gunmen have wreaked havoc in the suburb for
the past three days, attacking fuel convoys and blowing up tanker trucks.
Insurgents kidnapped an American civilian and killed a U.S. soldier in the area
Friday.
The captors of the American hostage � Thomas Hammil, a Mississippi native who
works for a U.S. contractor in Iraq (news
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sites) � threatened to kill and burn him unless U.S. troops end their
assault on Fallujah by 6 a.m. Sunday. The deadline passed with no word on
Hammil's fate.
Video footage aired on Arabic television Sunday showed the bodies of two dead
Westerners � apparently a pair of Americans seen by APTN cameramen on Friday
being dragged out of a car on the Abu Ghraib highway, in a different incident
from Hammil's kidnapping.
The cameramen fled the scene Friday, and the fate of the two men was unknown.
But one of the bodies in Sunday's footage resembled one of the Americans taken
out of the car.
The new video showed the bodies surrounded by gunmen, who are heard on the
tape saying the two are American intelligence officers. One of the bodies lay
sprawled on the pavement, his face bloodied and his right leg drenched in blood.
The other body had been rolled face down, his shirt lifted to reveal a bullet
hole in his back. Both wore dark T-shirts and khaki pants often worn by private
contractors.
Also Sunday, Germany's Foreign Ministry said two security agents for the
German Embassy in Baghdad who have been missing in Iraq for several days are
most likely dead.
The two German men, ages 38 and 25, were traveling from Amman, Jordan, to
Baghdad on a routine trip Wednesday and were ambushed near Fallujah, according
to the ministry. Other vehicles in the convoy reached the embassy on Thursday
after coming under fire, the ministry said.
Fallujah � 35 miles west of Baghdad � saw occasional sniper fire Sunday, but
was still the quietest it has been all week. Sunni insurgents and Marines agreed
to a cease-fire that started early Sunday will last until the evening amid talks
between Iraqi officials on how to end the violence.
Hundreds of U.S. reinforcements moved in place on the city edge, joining
1,200 Marines and nearly 900 Iraqi security forces already involved in the
fighting. Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt warned that an all-out assault could resume if
talks don't produce results.
"We haven't imposed any terms. At the moment we're just trying to get the
cease-fire in place," L. Paul Bremer, the top U.S. civilian administrator in
Iraq, said Sunday on ABC's "This Week." "What were trying to do is simply get
the forces to stop firing."
"We're in a testing time right now," Bremer said. "We always knew there were
going to be some severe tests as we move forward."
The most serious break in Sunday's peace came when a sniper opened fire on
U.S. patrol, wounding two Marines, commanders said. In the ensuing gunbattle, at
least one insurgent was killed. After the firefight, the city was largely quiet
again.
"They are not playing by the rules, sir," Marine Capt. Jason Smith radioed to
his commander after taking fire in another incident in which the troops did not
fire back.
U.S. forces have been instructed not to launch offensive attacks on the
rebels, said Lt. Col. Brennan Byrne, commander of the 1st Battalion, 5th Marine
Regiment, which is deployed in the city's south.
A guerrilla commander in Fallujah's al-Jolan neighborhood told Al-Jazeera
television that his fighters would abide by the truce.
"I have ordered my fighters to adhere to the cease-fire," said the commander,
identifying himself only by the nom de guerre Abu Muadh. "But I warn everyone:
If the enemy breaks the cease-fire, we will respond."
He added that the truce was due to last until 10 p.m. (2 p.m. EDT), but that
talks were ongoing in an attempt to extend it.
Sunday was the first that gunmen have said they were joining the halt in
offensive operations that Marines have largely stuck to unilaterally since noon
Friday.
U.S. commanders called the halt at the request of the U.S.-appointed Iraqi
Governing Council, where many members have been angered by bloodshed from the
Fallujah campaign launched April 5.
Councilmembers were holding a second day of negotiations with city
representatives Sunday in an attempt to win the handover of Iraqis who killed
and mutilated four American civilians on March 31 and of other militants.
"Were we not at this point observing (the halt) it could well have been that
we would have had the entire the city by this point," Kimmitt said Saturday. He
said fighters must "lay down their arms" and renounce their membership in
extremist groups to fully end the insurgency that has made Fallujah its
stronghold.
About a third of the city's population of 200,000 fled Friday and Saturday,
streaming out in cars, though Marines turned back any military-age men trying to
leave, Byrne said. During the lull, Marines distributed food to beleaguered
residents near the area held by U.S. troops.
"Families are holed up in houses. They have been told to stay inside. But
they are running out of water and food. We are trying to get rations to them,"
said Marine Capt. Jason Smith, 30, from Baton Rogue, La.
Hospital officials said Wednesday that more than 280 people have been killed
in the week of fighting in Fallujah, but no updated figures have been obtained
since and many bodies have been buried at the city's main soccer field without
even being taken to the hospital. At least five Marines have died in the
fighting. Kimmett said 60 insurgents had been captured, including five foreign
Arabs.
In southern Iraq, some 1.5 million Shiite pilgrims marked one of their
holiest religious days, al-Arbaeen. In the city of Karbala, hundreds of Shiite
militiamen � but no police � patrolled the street preparing for a possible U.S.
assault against rebellious followers of radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
U.S. commanders have suggested they will move against al-Sadr, whose militia
has control of Karbala and two other cities, after the al-Arbaeen ceremonies,
which mark the end of a 40-day mourning period for a 7th-century martyred Shiite
saint.
In fighting across the country over the past week � including in Fallujah and
in the uprising by al-Sadr's Shiite militia in the south � 47 American soldiers
and more than 550 Iraqis have been killed. At least 649 U.S. soldiers have died
in Iraq since the war began in March 2003.
In other violence:
_ Gunmen ambushed Iraqi police before dawn Sunday in the northern city of
Kirkuk, sparking a battle joined by U.S. troops. Four attackers were killed,
said Iraqi Col. Sarhad Qadir.
_ Insurgents attacked two Iraqi police patrols in Mosul on Saturday in fights
that killed two Iraqi police, a gunman and two passers-by, according to the
hospital.
_ Armed men clashed with U.S. soldiers in the Sunni neighborhood of
al-Azamiyah in Baghdad on Saturday. Four Iraqis were killed.
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