ISIS claims downing Iraqi military helicopter + Pics

BAGHDAD: Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) claimed that it shot down an Iraqi army helicopter in northern Iraq, the SITE monitoring group reported early on Thursday.

The helicopter crashed on Wednesday in Salahuddin province north of Baghdad near the Baiji oil refinery, the largest such facility in the country, according to an Iraqi army officer.

The officer confirmed two army personnel died, but said the crash was still under investigation.

ISIS said on Twitter that it downed the aircraft and published pictures that it claimed were of the debris and the corpse of one of the pilots.

The ISIS twitter feed also included a photo of one of their fighters preparing to fire off a shoulder-held rocket or missile that the group said struck the helicopter.

The Baiji refinery, which remains under Iraqi military control, has been surrounded since June when ISIS fighters swept across northern Iraq, seizing most Sunni sections of the country from the Shiite-led government in Baghdad.

ISIS fighters seized large numbers of shoulder-held missiles across the border from Iraq in Syria, where it has been fighting the Syrian government and other rebel factions.

The ISIS also looted most of the Iraqi military’s weapons supply – including tanks, humvees and ammunition – across northern Iraq as the Iraqi security forces fled this June in the face of the jihadists’ surprise offensive.

The ISIS has declared a Caliphate based on medieval Islamic beliefs in territory they control in Iraq and Syria.

/129