A British military helicopter was brought down in Basra on Saturday, killing at least four people aboard and sparking clashes between troops and youths chanting militia slogans and hurling petrol bombs, officials said.

Fire fighters said they had found four charred bodies in the wreckage.

The helicopter burst into flames on impact and a thick cloud of black smoke billowed into the air. Police said it crashed into a building near the provincial governor's office, but there were no Iraqi civilian casualties on the ground.

In London, Des Browne, Britain’s new defence minister, confirmed the casualty reports and said that "a number" of British soldiers were  killed in a helicopter crash on Saturday in the southern city of Basra.

Earlier an AFP correspondent reported seeing the corpses of two  British servicemen in the burning wreckage of the helicopter, which  one policeman in Basra had told AFP was downed by a rocket fired  from Basra.

Britain has some 8,000 soldiers deployed in and around Basra.  Not including the death toll from Saturday, it has lost 104 soldiers, 79 of them in combat operations, since joining the US-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003.

In January last year, 10 British aircrew died when their Hercules transport plane lost its wing and crashed just north of Baghdad after small arms ground fire had set a fuel tank ablaze.

Mob attacks troops

Soon after the crash, hundreds of angry youths surrounded the area and started attacking the British troops, cordoning off the crash site, with rocks and missiles.

Soon, a gun fire broke out between armed civilians and British troops. Two military tanks and a Land Rover were set on fire by the mob; one soldier was wounded by shrapnel and an AFP photographer at the site was hit in the leg by a rubber-coated bullet.

A British military spokesman confirmed the clashes.

PHOTO CAPTION

One British trooper falls, as British troops move towards helicopter crash site in Basra, Saturday, May 6, 2006. (AP)