CAIRO, Nov. 3 (Xinhuanet) -- The al-Qaida terror network in Iraqclaimed on Thursday that it had shot down a US helicopter outside the western Iraqi city of Ramadi on Wednesday, according to an Internet statement.

    "Our brothers in al-Qaida's armed wing in Iraq shot down a Super Cobra helicopter in the Ramadi city with a Strella rocket,"said the statement.

    The Strella rocket is a shoulder-launched anti-aircraft missilemade by the former Soviet Union.

    The authenticity of the statement, posted on a web site of tenused by Iraq's al-Qaida group, cannot be verified.Two US crew members were killed when the US Super Cobrahelicopter crashed on Wednesday outside Ramadi, a Sunni-dominatedcity some 100 km west of Baghdad.

    The US military did not reveal the cause for the crash, but aUS army official said on Thursday that the helicopter might havebeen brought down by insurgents.

    The military said further investigation was underway.Ramadi has been an insurgent bastion and witnessed several US-led anti-insurgency operations.

    The al-Qaida network in Iraq, led by the Jordanian-bornmilitant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, is behind some of the bloodiest incidents in the violence-plagued country. Enditem