FIVE American soldiers were killed in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan last night and three others died in attacks in Iraq.
A US military helicopter crashed near Bagram, Afghanistan, killing five
soldiers and injuring seven.
The incident happened near the US military headquarters north of the Afghan capital, US Central Command said.
The soldiers were involved in an ongoing US military operation, dubbed Mountain Resolve, taking place in the east of the country, the military said.
A spokesman said: ''Early reports indicate seven service members were injured and at least five service members were killed.''
It was not clear what caused the crash, and the military said it was investigating.
Bagram Air Base, just north of the capital, is home to the bulk of the 11,600 coalition forces in Afghanistan. An additional 5,000 international peacekeepers patrol Kabul.
In Iraq, two US soldiers were shot in their car in the northern city of Mosul yesterday and their bodies mutilated and looted by a crowd of Iraqis. Another soldier was killed by a roadside bomb north of Baghdad.
A spokesman for the 101st Airborne Division said the two soldiers were shot as they drove from one base in the city to another.
Witnesses said that after the shooting the soldiers were stabbed and their throats were slit. A crowd looted the civilian car they were driving and tried to set it on fire.
After the killings one man brandished a fistful of bloodstained Iraqi dinars he said were taken from the two soldiers.
In the United States, meanwhile, the leading Democrat on the Senate foreign relations committee said yesterday that more US troops were needed in Iraq now to put down an escalating insurgency.
Senator Joseph Biden, a Delaware Democrat, said if more counter-insurgency and special operations forces were deployed, US troops would be able to withdraw more swiftly from the embattled country.
''There's a direct relationship, us going in now and doing more so that we can get out earlier,'' he said.
Tom Daschle, the Democratic leader of the Senate, said extra American troops ''ought to be an option on the table''.
In Baghdad, Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt, a US army spokesman, would not discuss how the two soldiers died.
A fireman who ran to the scene after hearing gunfire said he saw a crowd of Iraqis ransacking the car.
''People were taking things from the car. I looked inside and saw two soldiers with blood all over them,'' he said.
US soldiers quickly surrounded the area in the city centre and interrogated bystanders.
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