Taliban shoots down helicopter in northern Afghanistan

DPA,  Wed, 24 Mar 2010, 13:40:20 GMT

Kunduz, Afghanistan -

A civilian helicopter contracted by the US military made a "hard landing" Wednesday in northern Afghanistan after being hit by Taliban fighters but there were no casualties, officials said.

The helicopter was shot in the Dashti Archi district of Kunduz province, said Shaikh Sa'adi, the district governor. NATO forces rushed to the area with their helicopters to evacuate the military personnel aboard, he said.

A spokesman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) confirmed the attack. He said in Kabul that the craft was contracted by US military forces and there were no injuries among those on board.

German and US forces are deployed in Kunduz, and the German military said two of its soldiers were on board the helicopter along with other ISAF personnel and all were unhurt.

Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid, speaking by phone from an undisclosed location, said, however, that all soldiers on board were killed when Taliban fighters hit the helicopter with a rocket-propelled grenade.

The crash came a day after a Turkish helicopter serving in the ISAF mission crashed in the central province of Wardak, injuring three people.

US, German and Turkish soldiers are among the 120,000 international troops currently stationed in the war-torn country.

Bomb kills 2 mine clearers in Afghanistan

Wed Mar 24, 2010, 6:56 am ET

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AFP) –

 Two mine clearers were killed and two others injured when their vehicle struck a roadside bomb in southern Afghanistan, a local police chief said Wednesday.

The blast struck in Chora district of Uruzgan province on Tuesday when the Afghan employees of the Mine Detection Center (MDC) were travelling to work.

"Two mine clearers were killed and two were wounded in the roadside bomb," Mohammad Gula, deputy provincial police chief, told AFP.

MDC is a non-governmental organisation established in 1989 to sweep landmines mostly planted during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.

A Taliban spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, claimed responsibility for the blast and said they were targeting a military vehicle.

Also Wednesday, a NATO helicopter made an emergency landing due to technical problems in northern Kunduz province, but no casualties were reported, district chief Shaikh Saadi said. NATO did not immediately comment on the incident.

There are currently about 120,000 troops under NATO and US command in Afghanistan battling a Taliban-led insurgency now in its ninth year, with troops numbers expected to swell to 150,000 within months.