Posted on 12/21/2002 8:20:52 AM PST by flamefront
KABUL (Reuters) - Six people in a German military helicopter and up to eight on the ground were killed on Saturday when the aircraft crashed before landing at an airport near the Afghan capital Kabul, Afghan officials and witnesses said.
The cause of the crash was not immediately known, a senior Afghan official said.
Afghan officials said all six passengers had died in the crash, while a witness said he had seen the bodies of another eight people, including two children, who may have been killed when the helicopter hit the ground. A German member of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) confirmed that an ISAF helicopter had crashed but could not give details.
Afghan defense ministry spokesman Gulbuddin said the helicopter crashed a few miles east of Kabul airport near a road leading to Bagram air base, the headquarters for the U.S military in Afghanistan.
"All six passengers...have been killed," Gulbuddin told Reuters, adding that the cause was not yet known.
Witnesses said the crash sent plumes of fire and smoke into the air, and one said he had seen 14 bodies at the crash site.
"I myself dealt with four corpses and there were eight other gutted bodies and two children who seemed to have been killed when the helicopter hit them perhaps," he told a Reuters photographer near the scene as he cleaned blood from his hand.
"The plane was heading toward Kabul when it nosed down toward the ground and caused a big explosion," another witness said.
Afghan security forces and foreign peacekeeping troops blocked the road leading to the site of the crash.
Germany is due to take over joint command next year of the 22-nation International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), which is charged with keeping the peace in the Afghan capital.
By Anwar Iqbal
UPI South Asian Affairs Analyst
From the International Desk
Published 12/21/2002 11:38 AM
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WASHINGTON, Dec. 21 (UPI) -- An Afghanistan helicopter crash that killed six people Saturday was not caused by hostile fire, an International Security Assistance Force spokesman told United Press International.
In another incident, a U.S. soldier was shot dead in the eastern Afghan province of Paktika "while on a patrol duty," the U.S. Central Command said.
"In our assessment, the reason of the crash is not an attack," said ISAF spokesman Col. Sanet Oz. The ISAF officer, who is in Kabul, told UPI by telephone that "some peacekeepers" had also died in the crash but refused to give a number, saying: "A lot of speculation is going on, and we do not want to add to this confusion."
He, however, confirmed that the helicopter, a Sikorsky CH-53, belonged to the German military.
Earlier, Kabul Chief Bashir Salangi, told reporters in the Afghan capital that at least six people -- four German peacekeepers and two civilians -- were killed in the crash.
"The two civilians, both children, died when the debris fell on them," Salangi said.
International peacekeepers quickly cordoned off the area. The crash occurred at 3:45 p.m. local time, Oz said.
The U.N.-mandated International Security Assistance Force has deployed 4,800 troops in Kabul to bring security to the war-ravaged Afghan Ccapital of 2.5 million people.
Oz said the peacekeepers were at the site of the crash, and a detailed report will be issued after they complete their investigation.
At CENTCOM headquarters in Florida, spokesman Lewis Matson confirmed that a U.S. soldier was killed in eastern Afghanistan.
He said an American patrol came upon some unidentified personnel while patrolling an area between Afghanistan's Paktika province and the Pakistani province.
"They watched them for a while, and then they chose to talk to them. At that point the personnel took off running and firing at the Americans," said Matson.
One American soldier was hit and wounded. The patrol removed the soldier to a nearby U.S. base where he died during surgery.
Matson said the soldier's name is being withheld pending notification of his family.
The soldier would be the first U.S. soldier to have been killed in Afghanistan since May 19.
The United States launched a military offensive in Afghanistan in October last year after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.
Although the U.S. troops have defeated the former Taliban regime and helped install a new government in Kabul, Taliban and al Qaida supporters are believed to have fled to inaccessible rural areas from where they often conduct hit-and-run attacks on U.S. soldiers and their Afghan and international allies.
The patrol came under attack at 4 a.m. local time.
In the other incidents, a U.S. special operations soldier was hurt Friday afternoon when rockets were fired at a U.S. compound in Asadabad, the capital of Afghanistan's northeastern Kunar province. The soldier was taken to Bagram where he underwent surgery. He was listed in stable condition.
Rockets, many Chinese-made and connected to crude water timers, have been fired frequently at U.S. troops stationed at the Khost airfield in eastern Afghanistan.
A third solder was hurt in a weapons training exercise with the Afghan military near Spinboldak in southeast Afghanistan. The soldier was trying to correct a misfire on a rocket-propelled grenade launcher at the time.
On Friday, a U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Lt. Gen. Daniel K. McNeil, warned that more attacks on American and allied troops were likely.
Speaking from the U.S. command center at Bagram Air Base near Kabul, McNeil said American forces would face more attacks as they step up their campaign to hunt down terrorists.
U.S. forces are also planning to expand their presence in Afghanistan, establishing 16 small posts of 60 soldiers each across the country. They will be backed by their local Afghan allies.
About 8,000 American troops are deployed across the mountainous nation, mostly along the eastern border with Pakistan. McNeil said the soldiers were in Afghanistan for the long haul, and he did not expect troop strength to be reduced if the United States goes to war with Iraq. Copyright © 2002 United Press International
No, not really. It was simply my own view of decorum: honoring the dead and so forth. My apologies if it seemed overbearing.
If you want FReeper orientation and/or help with HTML, etc......
Here is a link. Go to post #116 first (link should take you right to that post), and look under "Pictures". That will give a walk-thru for picture posting. That article gives a lot of very useful and helpful tips on HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language), which you need to post on FR. There are other related links and information there as well.
Click Here.
You might want to bookmark that article. Bookmarking puts an article on your FReeper Profile page for quick and easy referencing. See post #53 & 59 for bookmarking instructions.
If you have any questions or problems, feel free to send me a Freep mail or a note and we’ll work through it.
And here.
A soldier is always somebody's baby.
Innocent dead on the ground, as well.
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