The U.S. military suffered a high loss of life over the weekend as a military helicopter crashed late Saturday in northern Iraq, killing all 12 U.S. military personnel on board, and another five U.S. soldiers slain in separate attacks in the past 24 hours, the military said on Sunday.

A UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter with eight passengers and four crew members on board crashed in an area some 12 km east of Tal Afar, the U.S. military said in a statement.

It was the deadliest incident of its kind for U.S. forces in Iraq since a CH-53 Sea Stallion crashed in bad weather near the Jordanian border in western Iraq on Jan. 26, 2005, killing 31 American military personnel.

The helicopter was flying within a team of two helicopters moving between U.S. military bases when the communications were lost, the military said.

The U.S. troops immediately launched search and rescue operations in the area, some 400 km north of Baghdad, and investigation was under way.

Five U.S. soldiers were killed separately in Iraq during the past 24 hours, the U.S. military said in another statement.

Two U.S. marines were killed in two roadside bomb attacks in western Baghdad on Saturday and three U.S. soldiers were killed earlier on Sunday by small arms fire in Fallujah, some 50 km west of Baghdad.

The death toll of U.S. military personnel in Iraq has risen to 2,196 since the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003, excluding the people killed in Saturday's helicopter crash.

In another security development, a French hostage kidnapped in Baghdad a month ago was released on Saturday afternoon.

"The kidnappers of Bernard Planche released him at about 2:00 p. m. (1100 GMT) near a U.S. checkpoint in Abu Ghraib area in western Baghdad," sources told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

Planche, 52, was kidnapped by a group of militants calling themselves the Battalion of the Lookout for Iraq on Dec. 5 from his home in Baghdad's western Mansur district.

On Dec. 28, the Dubai-based al-Arabiyah TV aired a video tape showing Planche sitting on his knees with two gunmen behind him.

The group threatened to kill him if the French government did not "end its illegitimate presence in Iraq."

About 200 foreigners have been kidnapped in Iraq since the U.S.- led war ousted Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, dozens of whom were killed while others released.

Source: Xinhua