US forces investigating the crash of a single-seat Air Force jet in Iraq said Tuesday that insurgents reached the site before American forces could and the pilot remains missing.

Videotape pictures appear to show the wreckage of the F-16CG jet in the farm field where it crashed on Monday and the remains of a US serviceman with a tangled parachute nearby.

Al-Jazeera satellite television showed similar pictures on Monday, but declined to include the scenes of the dead pilot, saying they were too graphic to air.

The jet crashed about 30 kilometers northwest of Baghdad at about 1:35 PM on Monday while supporting extensive ground combat by coalition forces in Anbar province, the area of Iraq where many of the country's Sunni-Arab insurgent groups operate, the Air Combat Command said in a statement.

Fighter jets flying overhead when the crash occurred "confirmed that insurgents were in the vicinity of the crash site immediately following the crash," the command said. When US soldiers reached the area, "The pilot was not found at the crash site and his status cannot be confirmed at this time."

DNA samples were taken from the scene and were being tested, it said.

The F-16 was deployed to the 332nd Air Expeditionary Wing at Balad Air Base in Iraq.

Militants' claim

Major General William Caldwell, a US military spokesman, said Tuesday that he doubted the jet was shot down because F-16s fly very fast and have not encountered weapons in Iraq that are capable of taking them down.

But two Iraqi militant groups claimed to have downed the F-16 plane in retaliation for what they said was the US army's killing of tens of Iraqis, Al-Jazeera television said Tuesday. The television said it was quoting a joint statement from the Mujahideen Army and the Mujahideen Shura Council, in which they claimed the attack.

A local journalist who shot film of the wreckage of the plane after it came down said the pilot was dead.

While helicopter crashes in Iraq are not uncommon, it is rare for a fixed-wing aircraft to come down.

(China Daily November 29, 2006)