BAGHDAD, Iraq — A British military helicopter crashed in the southern city of Basra on Saturday and Iraqi police said the four-member crew was killed. A large crowd of Iraqis threw stones and set at least one armored vehicle on fire as British forces raced to the scene.

Police Capt. Mushtaq Khazim said the helicopter went down in a residential area of the city, apparently after being hit by a missile or a rocket. He said the four-member crew had died but no Iraqis were hurt on the ground.

The British military confirmed there were casualties but provided no other details.

British forces backed by armored vehicles rushed to the area but were met by a hail of stones from members of the crowd, who jumped for joy and raised their fists as a plume of thick smoke rose into the air from the crash site. The crowd also set at least one British tank on fire.

The chaotic scene was widely shown on Iraqi state television and on the Al-Jazeera satellite station.

In violence elsewhere, a suicide bomber wearing an Iraqi army uniform entered an Iraqi base in Tikrit and detonated an explosives belt, killing an Iraqi lieutenant colonel, a major and a lieutenant, and wounding a lieutenant colonel, said Iraqi Defense Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Abdul-Aziz Mohammed Jassim.

The U.S. command also announced that an American soldier was killed by a roadside bomb in Baghdad on Friday. At least 2,417 members of the U.S. military have died since the Iraq war started in March 2003.

Britain has about 8,000 troops based in the mostly Shiite Basra area, and southern Iraq has long been much less violent than Baghdad and western Iraq where Sunni Arab-led insurgents and al-Qaida in Iraq launch many attacks against Iraqi civilians and U.S. and Iraqi forces.

But Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the Shiite religious leader, hasn't always been able to keep growing anti-coalition fervor among Shiite radicals under control.

In September, British forces arrested two officials of Mahdi Army, the Shiite militia loyal to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, raising tensions in Basra. About a week later, militiamen and residents clashed with British troops after two British soldiers disguised as Arabs were detained by Iraqi authorities.