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Attack on helicopter in Afghanistan kills seven

Five Americans, a Briton and a Canadian died when a Chinook helicopter was apparently shot down in Afghanistan's most volatile province, officials said. The Taliban claimed responsibility.

NATO's International Security Assistance Force said other troops rushing to the scene were ambushed and had to call in air support to drive off their attackers.

Initial reports suggested the helicopter was hit with a rocket-propelled grenade on Wednesday evening, said the US official, who insisted on speaking anonymously because the crash was still under investigation. NATO said there were no survivors.

A purported Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousef Ahmadi, claimed in a telephone call that militants shot the helicopter down in southern Helmand Province, the world's largest opium poppy-growing region, where combat has been heavy in recent months.

Ahmadi did not offer any proof for his claim, but he specified the helicopter crashed in the Kajaki district hours before NATO reported that information. Kajaki is the site of a hydroelectric dam and the scene of recent fighting.

NATO said the CH-47 Chinook was carrying a crew of five and two military passengers when it crashed. The cause was "being determined by military officials," it said.

According to a US military official, the British and Canadian soldiers were passengers on the helicopter. The official requested anonymity because the dead soldiers' home countries had not yet publicly released their identities.

NATO said troops going to the crash site were ambushed by enemy fighters and the unit called in an airstrike "to eliminate the enemy threat."

It did not say if the troops were from the US-led coalition, NATO's force or the Afghan army. One civilian was injured by gunfire.

The CH-47 Chinook, a heavy transport helicopter with two rotors, can carry around 40 soldiers plus a small crew. The fact it was flying at night suggested the aircraft might have been carrying troops on a nighttime air assault.

Kajaki is the site of a large US-funded hydroelectric dam now being repaired so it can provide electricity to the southern city of Kandahar. British troops, who make up the bulk of the forces in Helmand Province, have been engaged in fierce fighting around the dam protecting it.

Meanwhile, a Taliban ambush of a police convoy in the south yesterday left 16 policemen dead, the interior ministry said, in one of the deadliest attacks against the fledgling police service.

The three-vehicle police convoy was on its way from the troubled province of Zabul to the capital when it was ambushed, ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary said.

"Sixteen police were martyred and another six police were wounded today at 8:30am in an ambush by the enemies of peace in Afghanistan," he said.

There were also casualties on the Taliban side, Bashary said, without giving a number.

Taliban militants fled the area after army reinforcements arrived, a press statement said.

The militants regularly attack Afghan policemen with roadside bombings and ambushes.
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