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Taliban claims chopper attack
31/05/2007 07:27 - (SA)
Kabul - Five US soldiers were among seven people killed when a Chinook helicopter was apparently shot down on Wednesday evening in Afghanistan's most volatile province, a US military official said.
The Taliban claimed responsibility.
Initial reports suggested the helicopter was hit with a rocket-propelled grenade, the US military official said on condition of anonymity because the crash was being investigated.
Nato's International Security Assistance Force said seven ISAF soldiers were killed after the CH-47 Chinook went down in Helmand province near Kajaki, the site of a major hydroelectric damn and scene of fierce battles in recent months.
The crew of five and two military passengers died, Nato said. It did not release nationalities, but a US official said the two passengers were not American. There were no survivors.
A battalion of US forces from the 82nd Airborne Division, fighting under the ISAF flag, has been engaged in heavy fighting in recent weeks in Helmand - the world's largest poppy-growing region. More Taliban militants have massed in Helmand than in any other province.
Troops at crash site ambushed
A purported Taliban spokesperson, Qari Yousef Ahmadi, claimed in a phone call to The Associated Press that militants had shot the helicopter down near Kajaki. He did not offer any proof of the claim, but Ahmadi did specify that the helicopter went down in Kajaki hours before Nato released that information.
"We have weapons that we have used to target helicopters before," he said.
ISAF said troops responding to the crash site were ambushed by enemy fighters and that the unit called in an air strike "to eliminate the enemy threat".
One Afghan civilian was injured by gunfire during the firefight, ISAF said. The cause of the crash was "being determined by military officials", it said.
- AP
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