KABUL, 26 September 2005 — A US military helicopter crashed during an anti-militant operation in Afghanistan yesterday killing all five American crew members, just days after President Hamid Karzai questioned the need for military operations.
The crash of the CH-47 Chinook in the southern province of Zabul came after a series of clashes between US-led forces and Taleban insurgents following Sept. 18 legislative elections that the guerrillas failed in their vow to derail.
US military spokesman Col. Jim Yonts said the helicopter crashed in Zabul’s Dai Chophan district while returning to base after dropping off troops during an anti-militant operation.
Taleban spokesman Abdul Latif Hakimi claimed the guerrillas shot down the helicopter using “modern weapons” he did not describe, but Yonts said all indications were that hostile fire was not to blame. “Five crew members on board were killed,” Yonts said.
He said that while militant forces were in the area of the operation, the aircraft, part of a flight of helicopters involved in the mission, came down in a rugged, remote area where there was no civilian population.
“Indications are from crew members’ ... reports that there was no hostile file that caused this crash,” he said, adding that a mechanical problem may have been to blame.
In the past six months, 56 foreign soldiers have died in helicopter crashes in Afghanistan, 39 of them Americans aboard Chinooks.
The United States leads a multinational force of about 20,000 troops pursuing Taleban and allied militants in the country.
Until yesterday, at least 49 US troops had died this year in hostile fire, making it the bloodiest for US forces since they overthrew the Taleban in late 2001.
In another incident early yesterday, two guerrillas were killed and two wounded trying to plant a roadside bomb in Helmand province, provincial spokesman Haji Mohammad Wali said.
