Iraqi Information Minister Saeed Sahaf told reporters in Baghdad that the pilots of the helicopters were also caught and could be shown on the television soon.

Some armed Iraqi soldiers, or civilians, were shown guarding one intact Apache helicopter in a green field near Karbala, a Shiite Muslim pilgrimage city some 80 km south of Baghdad.

There was no visible damage to the helicopter caused by bullets or rockets, which might suggest that it could have been forced to crash landing due to mechanical failure or some other reasons.

Following the day of most fierce fighting on Sunday, the US-British troops continued their advance towards the Iraqi capital, more than halfway after crossing the Kuwait-Iraq border on Thursday.

Sahaf warned that "more dark days" await the US-British invaders in the future. Fighting is widely expected to get harder as most of the elite Iraqi troops were deployed around Baghdad

The AH-64 Apache attack helicopters, the US Army's best attack helicopters, were used extensively in the 1991 Gulf War against Iraq.

(Xinhua News Agency March 24, 2003)