KABUL: Helicopter crashes killed 14 Americans on Monday — 11 soldiers and three drug agents — in the deadliest day for the US mission in Afghanistan in more than four years. The deaths came as President Barack Obama prepared to meet his national security team for a sixth full-scale conference on the future of the troubled war.
In the deadliest crash, a helicopter went down in the west of the country after leaving the scene of a firefight, killing 10 Americans — seven soldiers and three Drug Enforcement Administration agents. Eleven American soldiers, one US civilian and 14 Afghans were also injured.
In a separate incident, two US Marine helicopters — one UH-1 and an AH-1 Cobra — collided in flight before sunrise over the southern province of Helmand, killing four American soldiers and wounding two more, Marine spokesman Maj. Bill Pelletier said.
It was the heaviest single-day loss of life since June 28, 2005, when 16 US soldiers on a special forces helicopter died when their MH-47 Chinook helicopter was shot down by insurgents. The casualties also mark the first DEA deaths in Afghanistan since it began operations there in 2005.
US authorities have ruled out hostile fire in the collision but have not given a cause for the other fatal crash in the west. Taleban spokesman Qari Yusuf Ahmedi claimed Taleban fighters shot down a helicopter in northwest Badghis province’s Darabam district. It was impossible to verify the claim.
The Obama administration is debating whether to send tens of thousands more troops to the country, while the Afghan government is rushing to hold a Nov. 7 runoff election between President Hamid Karzai and challenger Abdullah Abdullah after it was determined that the August election depended on fraudulent votes.
Abdullah on Monday called for election commission chairman Azizullah Lodin to be replaced within five days, saying he has “no credibility.” Abdullah made the demand in a news conference during which he spelled out what he said were “minimum conditions” for holding a fair second round of voting, including the firing of any workers implicated in fraud and the suspension of several ministers he said had campaigned for Karzai in the first round before the official campaigning period began. His calls were swiftly slapped down by both Lodin and Karzai, who said Abdullah had no right to be issuing such demands.
