"We do confirm that there was a crash," a spokeswoman said, without elaborating. She declined to reveal if there were any casualties in the crash.

Meanwhile, a spokesman at the US Central Command headquarters in Qatar said that three US soldiers were killed and another one was injured when a Marine UH-1 Huey helicopter crashed in southern Iraq on Sunday.

He said the helicopter, which was on a support mission, was not shot down by hostile fire. He did not give the cause of the crash, which occurred at 8:30 p.m. (1730 GMT).

(Xinhua News Agency March 31, 2003)