7 NATO Soldiers Killed in Crash of a Helicopter in Afghanistan

By REUTERS
Published: May 31, 2007
KABUL, Afghanistan, May 30 (Reuters) — Seven NATO soldiers died when their Chinook helicopter crashed Wednesday in southern Afghanistan, the site of some of the heaviest recent fighting between Western forces and the Taliban, NATO said.
Troops responding to the crash were ambushed and called for an airstrike to eliminate the threat, NATO officials said.
The alliance would not say immediately if the big, twin-rotor military helicopter was directly involved in a battle with Taliban guerrillas or whether it was shot down. The cause of the crash was under investigation.
“Clearly, there were enemy fighters in the area,” said Maj. John Thomas, a spokesman for NATO’s International Security Assistance Force in Kabul. “It’s not impossible for small-arms fire to bring down a helicopter.”
[The Associated Press reported that it had received a call from a man who identified himself as Qari Yousuf Ahmadi, a Taliban spokesman, who said that militants had shot down the helicopter but did not provide proof for his claim.]
The helicopter went down in the southern province of Helmand, Afghanistan’s main opium poppy-growing region, where Western forces have clashed repeatedly with Taliban militants in recent months after a winter lull in fighting.
“The entire crew of five died in the incident,” the NATO force in Afghanistan said in a statement. “There were also two military passengers who died.” The statement said that one Afghan civilian was also wounded by small-arms fire after the crash.
[The Associated Press also reported that five American soldiers were killed in the crash, quoting an anonymous military official. But the NATO force does not release the nationalities of soldiers killed or wounded in Afghanistan.]
Chinook crashes in Afghanistan have killed at least 55 American soldiers in the last two years.
Taliban leaders have threatened in recent weeks to step up attacks on NATO and American-led coalition troops and said they had trained hundreds of suicide bombers to carry out attacks.