Iraqis, British Troops Spar After Crash

Residents and neighbours gather amid rubble following an explosion in the Shula area in northwest Baghdad, Saturday May 6 , 2006. Two rockets were fired in northwest Baghdad, one hitting a home and killing two children and wounding a woman. (AP Photo/Khalid Mohammed) (Khalid Mohammed - AP)

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- A British military helicopter apparently was hit by a missile Saturday and crashed in Basra, triggering a confrontation in which jubilant Iraqis pelted British troops with stones, hurled firebombs and shouted slogans in support of a radical Shiite Muslim cleric.

Iraqi police said four British crew members died in the crash in the southern city, and four Iraqi adults and a child were reported killed during the ensuing melee when Shiite gunmen exchanged fire with British soldiers who hurried to the scene. About 30 civilians were injured.

Reminiscent of other outbursts of Iraqis cheering the deaths of foreigners, the chaotic scene was widely shown on Iraqi state television and on the Al-Jazeera satellite station.

The violence underscored that discontent over the presence of foreign soldiers has been growing among Iraq's majority Shiites even though they have generally steered clear of the Sunni Arab-dominated insurgency.

Police Capt. Mushtaq Khazim said the helicopter went down in a vacant lot between two houses after it was struck by a shoulder-fired missile _ a weapon widely available among insurgent groups and armed militias in Iraq. He said the four crew members were killed.

British soldiers with armored vehicles rushed to the site and were met by a hail of stones from a crowd of at least 250 people, many of them teenagers, who jumped for joy and raised their fists as thick smoke rose from the wreckage.

As many as three armored vehicles were set on fire, apparently with gasoline bombs and a rocket-propelled grenade, but the troops inside escaped unhurt, witnesses said.

The crowd chanted "we are all soldiers of al-Sayed," a reference to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, an ardent foe of foreign troops being in Iraq.

Calm returned by nightfall as Iraqi authorities imposed a curfew and hundreds of Iraqi police and soldiers set up checkpoints and patrolled the streets, residents said. Sporadic rocket fire could be heard throughout Basra, Iraq's second largest city.

The British Defense Ministry confirmed only that there were "casualties" in the afternoon crash but refused to give a figure or discuss the cause.

A British spokeswoman, Capt. Kelly Goodall, said British soldiers who responded came "under attack by a variety of weapons, including small arms fire, petrol bombs, as well as blast bombs and stone."

She said the soldiers fired "a small number of live rounds" in self defense. She said there was some minor injuries among the troops on the ground, but gave no details.