At least 17 people, including 12 Afghan army soldiers, were killed yesterday in a helicopter crash in southern Afghanistan, the worst such incident suffered by military forces since the NATO combat mission ended in December last year.
The Afghan Ministry of Defense said the military helicopter went down due to a technical fault in Shinkay, a district relatively free of insurgent activity in the otherwise volatile province of Zabul.
“The Mi17 transport helicopter crashed, killing 17 people, including 12 Afghan army soldiers and five crew members. It was not an insurgent attack; it crashed due to technical difficulties,” a senior army commander in the south said on condition of anonymity.
The Taliban claimed they shot down the chopper with a rocket launcher, but the insurgents are known to exaggerate or falsify battlefield claims.
Shinkay District chief Mohammad Qasim Khan also attributed the crash to a technical fault, with another military commander saying an official delegation has been dispatched to the area to investigate the incident.
Aircraft crashes have been a regular risk for Afghan and foreign coalition forces, with troops relying heavily on air transport to traverse Afghanistan’s rugged terrain to fight the Taliban.
The insurgents have on occasion brought down NATO helicopters, notably a US Chinook in 2011, which killed 30 US nationals, but such incidents have been rare.
In April last year, five British troops died when their helicopter crashed in Kandahar Province, in what the British Ministry of Defence said at the time appeared to be a “tragic accident.”
The fledgling Afghan air force has 83 Mi17 transport helicopters, out of which “a large number are currently under maintenance during the fighting season,” said Graeme Smith, a senior analyst with the International Crisis Group in Afghanistan.
“Maintenance is a serious issue for the Afghan air force and it is hurting their ability to provide air support to ground forces,” he said.
News of the crash comes after a Taliban suicide truck bomber killed six people early yesterday, in the first major attack since the announcement of Taliban leader Mullah Omar’s death.
The attack in Pul-i-Alam, the capital of Logar Province, highlights growing insecurity that is taking a heavy toll on Afghan civilians and security forces.
The bombing coincides with a faltering peace process, with the Taliban confronted by an increasingly bitter power transition after Mullah Akhtar Mansoor was announced as the new leader on Friday last week.
Many of Mansoor’s rivals have challenged his appointment, exposing the Taliban’s biggest leadership crisis in recent years and one that raises the risk of a factional split.
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