Rocket fire downs US chopper in Iraq

Also, a car bomb detonated next to a police convoy, killing a 6-year-old child and five police officers.

The car blew up in Muqdadiya, about 96 km north of the capital, a police joint operations center and a local hospital said. Najim Abid, a medic at Muqdadiya general hospital, said five policemen and a child were killed by the blast, which injured sixteen civilians and three policemen.

The news came as Iraq's electoral commission prepared to announce the long-awaited results of a fraud probe into last month's general election, the first for a permanent government since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003.

There was no news on the fate of the two-man crew after the US helicopter crashed at 8.20 am (0520 GMT), a military spokesman said.

"The cause of the accident is under investigation," he told AFP.

A journalist for Dubai-based Al-Arabiya television station, speaking from the scene, said the helicopter plunged to earth in a ball of flames after being hit by a rocket.

Monday's incident was the third US helicopter crash in Iraq this month.

Two US pilots were killed on Friday when their reconnaissance helicopter was apparently shot down in the north of the country, while eight US soldiers and four civilians perished a week earlier when their Black Hawk helicopter crashed near the restive town of Tal Afar in northwestern Iraq.

Iraqi and US officials hope the creation of a unified government following elections a month ago will help to undermine the insurgency.

But the final results of the December 15 poll have been delayed by some 1,800 fraud complaints made largely by Sunni-backed and secular parties.

The Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq said it would release its findings into the claims at a press conference Monday.

The probe focused on 50 of the most serious ballot-rigging allegations, which may have had some minor impact on the final results, officials said.

A group of foreign monitors was also expected to publish the findings of its own separate investigation into the vote on Thursday.

Both announcements are seen as crucial to give further credibility to the election, with negotiations on forming a new four-year government delayed by the slow release of the certified results.

Initial results last month suggested that the country's Shia majority, led by the United Iraqi Alliance coalition, came out on top.