U.S. defense officials today confirmed an Apache Longbow helicopter has gone down near the city of Kerbala, 70 miles southwest of Baghdad, and the two crewmembers are missing. The coalition air offensive, meanwhile, continued at an intense pace over the weekend, but the number of aim points declined dramatically through Sunday.

"The fate of the crew is uncertain right now," Gen. Tommy R. Franks said during a news conference on Monday morning. "We characterize that crew of two men as missing in action," he said. The downed helicopter was one of between 30 and 40 attack helicopters that were moved into this target set, he added.

Defense officials would not comment on press reports that claim a second helicopter was shot down in Iraq.

The Boeing Co. Apache is a twin-engine army attack helicopter, which was deployed in the 1991 Gulf War, Bosnia, Kosovo and Afghanistan. It uses laser, infrared and other high-technology systems to find, track and attack targets. During the first Gulf War, AH-64A Apaches destroyed more than 500 tanks and hundreds of armored personnel carriers.

During the weekend, coalition aircrews flew about 2,000 sorties on March 21, 1,500 sorties on March 22 and more than 2,000 sorties on March 23. But the number of aim points, which can include multiple sites within the same target, declined from 1,500 on March 21, to 500 on March 22, to only 200 on Sunday.

Strike sorties accounted for roughly half of the missions flown on each day.

Air strikes involved U.S. Air Force F-15Es, F-16s, F-117s, A-10s, B-52s, B-1s and B-2s, plus U.S. Navy F/A-18s, F-14s and Royal Air Force Tornados. An armed Predator unmanned aerial vehicle also was involved in at least one attack on an air defense target, marking its first combat sortie during Operation Iraqi Freedom and perhaps the first use of armed UAVs by the Air Force. Previous reported Predator attacks in Afghanistan and Yemen were conducted by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.

In another operational first, F-117 crews struck five targets March 21 using the new precision-guided EGBU-27, a 2,000-pound penetrator equipped with a Global Positioning System navigation aid.