Three US troops were killed and a fourth was injured when a Marine helicopter crashed in southern Iraq, a spokesman at the US Central Command war headquarters said this evening.
The spokesman said the helicopter was not brought down by hostile fire but could not provide any further information.
In Baghdad there have been reports of four big explosions in the centre of the city this evening, as the capital continues to come under intense aerial bombardment by US-led forces.
Warplanes have been pounding the southern outskirts of Baghdad for days, targeting areas where Iraq's Republican Guard units are believed to be dug in to defend the city.
Further south US troops have been digging in, surrounding their positions with artillery pieces to defend them while they wait for the order to move forward.
Earlier, the Iraqi Information Ministry claimed that missiles struck a residential neighbourhood in central Baghdad.
The city of Kirkuk in northern Iraq was also reported to be under attack from coalition warplanes.
And in Basra, British troops were confronted by about 2000 angry Iraqis who forced their way through a checkpoint to bring food to their families in the besieged city.
US bomb northern front line
There are reports that US forces have dropped around 20 bombs on an Iraqi-held ridge close to the northern front line with Kurdish-controlled territory.
The Reuters news agency has said the attack centred on an area north of the city of Mosul.
Iraq claims helicopters downed
Iraq's Information Minister, Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, said two US helicopters had been shot down by Iraqi tribesman and fighters.
The US military says it has no reports of any missing helicopters, and denied claims that a Harrier fighter had been shot down.
More suicide bombings warning
Iraq's vice president, Taha Yassin Ramadan, has threatened to extend suicide attacks against US & UK troops in Iraq.
The warning follows yesterday's suicide attack that killed four US soldiers.
The militant Palestinian group Islamic Jihad, which claimed responsibility for today’s suicide bombing in Israel, has said it has suicide bombers inside Baghdad ready to attack US and British forces, according to a Reuters report.
And a truck rammed into a group of soldiers at a US camp in northern Kuwait, but there are no details on casualties and it was not confirmed as a deliberate attack.
In Baghdad this morning, ten explosions were heard south of the city after overnight air raids hit government targets in the capital.
Reports from the Iraqi capital say that much larger bombs are now being used and that the sporadic rumbling of explosions became almost continuous as night fell.
The air strikes came amid continuing recriminations over the deaths of 50 or more Iraqi civilians in a blast at a Baghdad suburb market on Friday night.
Iraq's Information Minister, Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf, gave details of what he said were civilian deaths caused by aircraft attacks in southern Iraq.
Two marines die
A brief statement from US Central Command in Qatar said the marine from the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force was killed late on Friday.
It gave no other details.
In a separate statement, it said another US marine from the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force drowned yesterday when the Humvee he was travelling in rolled into a canal in southern central Iraq.
Channel 4 reporter found dead in northern Iraq
The Channel 4 News foreign affairs correspondent Gaby Rado has been found dead at a hotel in Suleimaniya, northern Iraq.
ITN, which produces Channel 4 News, said that there appears to be no direct connection with any military action.
It is believed that he fell from the roof of the Abu Sanaa hotel into the car park below, where his body was found.
