A US military helicopter went down southwest of Baghdad on Saturday, the military said in a statement, adding that the status of the crew was unknown.

Six Iraqis were killed by armed men when their minibus was attacked northeast of Baghdad, Iraqi officials said on Saturday, a day when a further 19 people lost their lives, many of them to drive-by shootings.

The men were returning from a visit to relatives when they were ambushed on Friday night near the town of Balad Ruz, about 70km from the capital Baghdad, according to the town's mayor.

The motive for the attack remains unclear. However, the area has Shia and Sunni residents and has witnessed numerous sectarian acts of violence.

Also, armed men killed three ice cream vendors in the capital's southern neighbourhood of Dora and a butcher and his son in east Baghad, police said. Another son was also wounded in the attack on the butcher shop.

In the western Iskan neighbourhood, assailants killed the owner of an air-conditioner repair shop on his way to work.

Random killings

A Sunni sheikh was killed by armed men in a speeding car when he left his home in the southern city of Basra. His brother, who was with him, was wounded, a Sunni official said.

Police reported the discovery of at least eight bodies, mostly young men who were shot in the head or strangled in Baghdad.

Witnesses also told police they saw three armed men in a BMW pull a handcuffed man out of the car and shoot him near a highway in west Baghdad.

West of Baghdad, US and Iraqi troops killed three suspected fighters, including a woman, and captured three others on Saturday in an operation in Amiriyah in Anbar province, the US military said.

South of Baquba, an Iraqi army sergeant major was killed on Friday after his patrol surprised a group of suspected anti-government fighters trying to steal a dump truck.

In other developments, American journalist Jill Carroll left Iraq to head home after her release by Iraqi abductors who held her for 82 days.

Journalist departs

The Christian Science Monitor writer left Baghdad early on Saturday, two days after she was set free.

She later arrived smiling at the US Ramstein Air Base in Germany. She was expected to leave for Boston later from Frankfurt.

Before the 28-year-old reporter was released, her abductors filmed a video interview in which she spoke out against the US military presence in Iraq.

"Tens of thousands ... have lost their lives here because of the occupation," she said in the video, posted on an Islamist Web site. "I think Americans need to think about that and realize day-to-day how difficult life is here."

She said Iraqi anti-US fighters were "only trying to defend their country ... to stop an illegal and dangerous and deadly occupation".

Carroll has not made any public statements about the video, but her father told the Monitor it was coerced.

In the video, the journalist also spoke of the hardships Iraqis face.

"People don't have electricity. They don't have water," she said. "Children don't have safe streets to walk in. Women and children are always in danger."

PHOTO CAPTION

Iraqi Army Soldiers of 4th Iraqi Army Division exit a U.S. CH-47 Chinook helicopter in support of Operation Swarmer in Samarra, Iraq, March 16, 2006. (AP)