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.
"A multinational forces helicopter was hit by a rocket and went down on houses in central
London confirms
Britain has around 8,000 soldiers
In
deployed around Basra
Browne said that the situation at the crash site was still developing but that "at this early stage I can confirm the tragic deaths of a number of British service personnel."
"The cause of the crash remains unclear. Together with the Iraqi emergency services, British forces are securing the crash site, which will help to ensure a thorough investigation of all possible causes of the incident," he said in a statement.
Earlier an AFP correspondent reported seeing the corpses of two British servicemen in the burning wreckage of the helicopter, which one policeman in
Browne, who was named defence minister on Friday following a major cabinet reshuffle, said it was too early to determine the exact cause of the crash.
"I would urge people not to speculate on what may have happened until the situation in
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.
Güncelleme Tarihi: 20 Eylül 2018, 18:16