BAGHDAD, Oct 6: The US military said on Wednesday it had lost track of a small, unmanned surveillance plane over Baghdad as militant Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi's group claimed it shot down two such drones.

"One of our UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles), we have lost contact with it," said Major Philip Smith, a spokesman for the army in the Iraqi capital. The path of the small model-plane-sized Raven was last recorded at about 3:00 pm (1200 GMT). It had been flying over the Haifa Street area, a Sunni stronghold.

"Who knows what happened to it," said Smith. An internet statement in the name of the faction of the Jordanian-born Zarqawi, Iraq's most wanted man, said its fighters had downed two US surveillance aircraft. -AFP