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.

Al-Jazeera aired part of a video Friday in which it said a militant group was threatening to kill three kidnapped Romanian journalists and their Iraqi-American translator unless Romanian troops leave Iraq within four days.

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. On Thursday, a U.S. Marine died in a non-hostile incident at Camp Delta, near Karmah, 50 miles west of Baghdad.