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| Afghanistan |
| NATO: Helicopter Down in Afghanistan |
| 2007-05-30 |
| NATO said one of its helicopters went down in southern Afghanistan on Wednesday evening around 9 p.m. local time, and a Taliban spokesman claimed the militant group had shot it down. A purported Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousef Ahmadi, claimed in a phone call to The Associated Press that militants had shot the helicopter down in Helmand province. Ahmadi said the helicopter was shot down in the Kajaki district and that everyone on board died. That claim could not be immediately verified. "We have weapons that we have used to target helicopters before," he said. Kajaki is the site of a large hydroelectric dam that is being repaired. It has been the scene of heavy fighting in recent months, mostly by British troops who operate in the region. A battalion of U.S. forces with the 82nd Airborne have also been in combat in Helmand province recently. Helicopter crashes in Afghanistan have been relatively rare. A CH-47 Chinook crashed in February in the southern province of Zabul, killing eight U.S. servicemembers. Officials ruled out enemy fire as the cause. In May 2006, another Chinook crashed attempting a nighttime landing on a small mountaintop in eastern Kunar province, killing 10 U.S. soldiers. In 2005, a U.S. helicopter crashed in Kunar, after apparently being hit by a rocket-propelled grenade, killing 16 American troops. |
| Posted by:trailing wife |
| #1 Helos - the most useful aircraft you never want to use... |
| Posted by: M. Murcek 2007-05-30 20:32 |