Baghdad, Iraq ? A car bomb ripped through a crowded mosque during Friday prayers, killing eight people and wounding 26 in the latest attack targeting Iraq’s Shiite majority. Frantic worshippers searched through rubble for loved ones, and women wailed and beat their chests in grief.

The U.S. military sent investigators to the grassy field north of Baghdad where a helicopter carrying 11 civilians was shot down Thursday. A video posted on a militant Web site suggested insurgents gunned down the lone survivor of the crash, and the Bulgarian company that owns the helicopter confirmed Friday the man seen in the footage was indeed one of the aircraft’s pilots.

The violence was part of a surge of attacks that have caused heavy casualties in recent weeks, ending a relative lull since Iraqis voted in historic Jan. 30 elections. Iraqi leaders are struggling to form a Cabinet that will include members of the Sunni minority, believed to be the driving force in the insurgency.

One U.S. soldier was killed Friday by a roadside bomb north of Tal Afar, 95 miles east of the Syrian border, the military said.

‘Savage act’

The car bomb exploded at Al-Subeih mosque, in the capital’s Shiite-dominated New Baghdad neighborhood, said police Col. Ahmed Aboud. Witnesses said the vehicle used in the attack had been parked outside the building since the morning.

A 10-year-old child was among the eight people killed, and the 26 wounded included two 9-year-olds, hospital officials said.

Body parts were strewn at the scene among piles of bricks, shattered glass and pools of blood.

“This is a cowardly and savage act that aims to create conflict among Iraqis,” said Abdelallah Faraj, a grocer who survived the attack.

Crash site surveyed

Iraqis inspect the site where a car bomb exploded Friday at a Shiite mosque in Baghdad, Iraq, killing at least eight people and wounding 26 others, police said. The blast happened during midday prayers, in the capital's eastern New Baghdad neighborhood at the Al-Subeih mosque.

North of the capital, Col. Paul Bricker led a team of investigators who surveyed the site where the helicopter crashed Thursday, the military said.

The chartered flight between Baghdad and Tikrit was believed to be the first civilian aircraft shot down in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003. A spokesman for U.S. forces in Iraq said an American medevac team arrived at the site within a half hour of Thursday’s crash and found no survivors.

The dead included six American bodyguards for U.S. diplomats, three Bulgarian crew and two security guards from Fiji, officials said.

Their bodies were taken to Balad Air Base, and an aircraft recovery team from the 3rd Infantry Division was moving the wreckage of the helicopter to Baghdad International Airport for further inspection, the military said.

Two militant groups claimed responsibility for shooting down the Russian-made Mi-8 helicopter and released video to support their claims.

A group calling itself the Islamic Army in Iraq posted footage on the Internet purporting to show militants capturing and shooting the lone survivor, found lying in the grass near burning wreckage and charred bodies.

Mihail Mihailov, the manager of Heli Air, the Bulgarian owner of the helicopter, identified the man in the footage as Lyubomir Kostov, one of the aircraft’s two pilots.

Another video

Al-Jazeera broadcast another video from a group calling itself the Mujahedeen Army in Iraq that showed the helicopter flying about 100 feet above the ground. At one point, the camera suddenly shook, swinging down to show the ground near the cameraman’s feet — apparently as a missile hit the helicopter.

When the camera turned back toward the sky, the helicopter was in flames, arcing toward the ground and trailing a pall of black smoke.

There was no independent confirmation of the authenticity of either video.