The two Black Hawk helicopters delivered a total 760 litres of bottled water and 580 ready-to-eat meals in what the pilots said they hoped would be the first of many such humanitarian flights.

"We're just giving them food and water and hoping that our help wins over some of the Shiites," one of the pilots, Captain Eric Then, told AFP correspondents allowed on the flight.

The focus on providing food, water and medical supplies in the wake of the invading US and British forces is designed to reinforce the Anglo-American message that their soldiers are attacking only the regime of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and want to help ordinary Iraqis.

It also has a strategic value insofar as coalition commanders hope images of their men and women handing out humanitarian aid will cut down public support for Saddam's forces and deliver Iraqi towns and cities with the minimum of combat.

"We are just waiting for one of the cities to fall and to start a domino effect," said Then.

The two Black Hawks from the US 101st Airborne Division met no resistance as they landed at the one-strip airfield near Najaf which had been secured by the 101st's ground forces late Monday.

Farmland could be seen to the north of the facility, and two Iraqi farmers were sitting idly by their house just 150 metres (yards) from where the aircraft touched down.

A blackened shell of a destroyed small Iraqi tank was also nearby.

The pallets of rations of water were quickly unloaded on the ground and handed over to soldiers from the 101st who planned to distribute it.

Najaf, 150 kilometres (95 miles) south of Baghdad, is, like much of southern Iraq, populated mainly by Shiite Muslims who have been generally oppressed by the Sunni Muslims who dominate Saddam's regime.

But the US military's hopes of winning the support of civilians in the Najaf region were dealt a blow Monday when some US soldiers manning a checkpoint shot up a civilian vehicle that failed to stop on their command, killing at least seven women and children.

SPACE.WIRE