Hundreds of police swarmed through a southern Afghan village yesterday, searching house-to-house for the assailant who sprayed a US company's helicopter with gunfire, killing the Australian pilot and wounding two passengers.
Police arrested 30 suspected Taliban members and seized five AK-47 assault rifles in Thaloqan village, about 60km southwest of the provincial capital, Kandahar, said a police official, General Salim Khan.
Four foreigners and an Afghan interpreter had traveled in the helicopter on Sunday to inspect the construction of a clinic.
They were about to leave when a man with a Kalashnikov rifle attacked the helicopter and fled, said Khalid Pashtoon, spokesman for the governor of Kandahar province.
The chopper's Australian pilot was killed and an American woman who was helping set up the clinic was seriously wounded, a US Embassy spokesman said on condition of anonymity.
A security guard also suffered serious injuries, the US Embassy said in a statement issued late on Sunday.
Officials said the helicopter belonged to The Louis Berger Group, an engineering firm based in East Orange, New Jersey. The company oversees infrastructure projects in southern Afghanistan.
In Australia, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said yesterday that the pilot came from South Australia state, but declined to release his name or other details until the man's relatives were informed of his death.
"It's very sad that he's gone," Downer said. "He was there to help the people of Afghanistan."
Afghan forces immediately began a manhunt in the area, where rebels of Afghanistan's former ruling Taliban regime are active. Pashtoon said the village was home to the Hezb-e-Islami group of renegade warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a key Taliban ally.
After the shooting, about 100 US troops and 100 Afghan forces cordoned off the site as a US military helicopter hoisted away the bullet-riddled chopper.
In a statement, the US military condemned the shooting as a "senseless and violent criminal attack," and called on tribal elders and other locals to hand over the assailant.
A man claiming to speak for the Taliban, Abdul Samad, telephoned reporters in Kabul about six hours after the attack and said the hard-line Islamic militia was responsible.
That claim could not be independently confirmed, and Samad's description of the shooting -- which he said involved eight guerrillas -- was at odds with witness accounts.
A US military quick reaction force evacuated the injured people to a military hospital at Kandahar airfield, said military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Bryan Hilferty.
Insurgent attacks in lawless southern and eastern Afghanistan have become commonplace over the past year, despite continuing efforts to hunt down the Taliban and their allies.
US military officials say the rebels have started going after "soft" civilian targets after incurring heavy losses in battles with coalition forces in the middle of last year.
The attacks appear to be aimed at undermining the US-backed government of President Hamid Karzai and reconstruction efforts in the country, which is trying to emerge from a quarter-century of war.
LANDMARK CASE: ‘Every night we were dragged to US soldiers and sexually abused. Every week we were forced to undergo venereal disease tests,’ a victim said More than 100 South Korean women who were forced to work as prostitutes for US soldiers stationed in the country have filed a landmark lawsuit accusing Washington of abuse, their lawyers said yesterday. Historians and activists say tens of thousands of South Korean women worked for state-sanctioned brothels from the 1950s to 1980s, serving US troops stationed in country to protect the South from North Korea. In 2022, South Korea’s top court ruled that the government had illegally “established, managed and operated” such brothels for the US military, ordering it to pay about 120 plaintiffs compensation. Last week, 117 victims
China on Monday announced its first ever sanctions against an individual Japanese lawmaker, targeting China-born Hei Seki for “spreading fallacies” on issues such as Taiwan, Hong Kong and disputed islands, prompting a protest from Tokyo. Beijing has an ongoing spat with Tokyo over islands in the East China Sea claimed by both countries, and considers foreign criticism on sensitive political topics to be acts of interference. Seki, a naturalised Japanese citizen, “spread false information, colluded with Japanese anti-China forces, and wantonly attacked and smeared China”, foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian told reporters on Monday. “For his own selfish interests, (Seki)
Argentine President Javier Milei on Sunday vowed to “accelerate” his libertarian reforms after a crushing defeat in Buenos Aires provincial elections. The 54-year-old economist has slashed public spending, dismissed tens of thousands of public employees and led a major deregulation drive since taking office in December 2023. He acknowledged his party’s “clear defeat” by the center-left Peronist movement in the elections to the legislature of Buenos Aires province, the country’s economic powerhouse. A deflated-sounding Milei admitted to unspecified “mistakes” which he vowed to “correct,” but said he would not be swayed “one millimeter” from his reform agenda. “We will deepen and accelerate it,” he
‘HYANGDO’: A South Korean lawmaker said there was no credible evidence to support rumors that Kim Jong-un has a son with a disability or who is studying abroad South Korea’s spy agency yesterday said that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s daughter, Kim Ju-ae, who last week accompanied him on a high-profile visit to Beijing, is understood to be his recognized successor. The teenager drew global attention when she made her first official overseas trip with her father, as he met with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Analysts have long seen her as Kim’s likely successor, although some have suggested she has an older brother who is being secretly groomed as the next leader. The South Korean National Intelligence Service (NIS) “assesses that she [Kim Ju-ae]
RSS