British Prime Minister Tony Blair said Tuesday it was unclear what caused a British military transport plane to crash in Iraq with the presumed loss of all 10 servicemen on board.
"Let me again express my sympathy and condolences to the families of those that have died," Blair told the ITV television station.
"We don't yet know the exact cause of the crash. We hope we will be able to give people more details of that in due course."
Activists claim to have shot down the Hercules aircraft north of Baghdad on Sunday, and Al-Jazeera television has aired a videotape from them showing flaming wreckage of a plane.
Britain's Chief of the Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup, said late Monday that a senior investigator was on his way to Iraq, where staff on the ground were already sifting through the wreckage.
The Hercules was on an administrative flight between Baghdad and a U.S. air base at Balad when it crashed at 16:35 local time, 30 kilometers northwest of Baghdad on Sunday, the Ministry of Defense has said.
Meanwhile, Italy intends to send better-armored helicopters to Iraq, the defense minister said, 10 days after an Italian soldier was killed during a helicopter patrol.
Speaking on a television talk show late Monday, Defense Minister Antonio Martino said a request from Italy's General Staff for armored Mangusta helicopters for use in Iraq was "in line with what we intend to do."
© 2005 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
