14 Americans Die in Afghan Chopper Crashes
Taliban spokesman claims militants shot down one of the helicopters
Video
Deadly hours in Afghanistan (NBC Nightly News, Oct. 26, 2009) — An Army helicopter went down in the west of the country after leaving the scene of a firefight, killing 10 Americans. A second crash involving two U.S. Marine helicopters killed 4 more Americans, marking the heaviest single loss of American lives in Afghanistan since 2005. NBC’s Richard Engel reports. (02:56)
October 26, 2009
KABUL, Afghanistan — Helicopter crashes killed 14 Americans on Monday — 11 troops and three drug agents — in the deadliest day for the U.S. mission in Afghanistan in more than four years. The deaths came as President Barack Obama prepared to meet his national security team for a sixth full-scale conference on the future of the troubled war.
The casualties also marked the Drug Enforcement Administration’s first deaths in Afghanistan since it began operations here in 2005. Afghanistan is the world’s largest producer of opium — the raw ingredient in heroin — and the illicit drug trade is a major source of funding for insurgent groups.
In the deadliest crash, a helicopter went down in the west of the country after leaving the scene of a firefight, killing 10 Americans — seven troops and three Drug Enforcement Administration agents. Eleven American troops, one U.S. civilian and 14 Afghans were also injured.
In a separate incident, two U.S. Marine helicopters — one UH-1 and an AH-1 Cobra — collided in flight before sunrise over the southern province of Helmand, killing four American troops and wounding two more, Marine spokesman Maj. Bill Pelletier said.
It was the heaviest single-day loss of life since June 28, 2005, when 16 U.S. troops on a special forces helicopter died when their MH-47 Chinook helicopter was shot down by insurgents. …
Taliban claim
U.S. authorities have ruled out hostile fire in the collision but have not given a cause for the other fatal crash in the west. Taliban spokesman Qari Yusuf Ahmedi claimed Taliban fighters shot down a helicopter in northwest Badghis province’s Darabam district. It was impossible to verify the claim and unclear if he was referring to the same incident.
Military spokeswoman Elizabeth Mathias said hostile fire was unlikely because the troops were not receiving fire when the helicopter took off.
NATO said the helicopter was returning from a joint operation that targeted insurgents involved in “narcotics trafficking in western Afghanistan.”
“During the operation, insurgent forces engaged the joint force and more than a dozen enemy fighters were killed in the ensuing firefight,” a NATO statement said.
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U.S. forces also reported the death of two other American service members a day earlier: one in a bomb attack in the east, and another who died of wounds sustained in an insurgent attack in the same region. The deaths bring to at least 47 the number of U.S. service members who have been killed in October.
This has been the deadliest year for international and U.S. forces since the 2001 invasion to oust the Taliban. Fighting spiked around the presidential vote in August, and 51 U.S. soldiers died that month — the deadliest for American forces in the eight-year war. …
Elsewhere Monday, Nangarhar province Gov. Gul Agha Sherzai survived an assassination attempt after a gunman fired automatic weapons at his convoy in Jalalabad, according to his spokesman Ahmad Zia Abdulzai. Sherzai’s bodyguards killed the gunman, as well as another attacker wearing a suicide vest and carrying grenades.
Meanwhile, security forces in Kabul fired automatic rifles into the air for a second day Monday to contain hundreds of stone-throwing university students angered over the alleged desecration of Islam’s holy book, the Quran, by U.S. troops during an operation two weeks ago in Wardak province. Fire trucks were also brought in to push back protesters with water cannons. Police said several officers were injured in the mayhem.
U.S. and Afghan authorities have denied any such desecration and insist that the Taliban are spreading the rumor to stir up public anger. The rumor has sparked similar protests in Wardak and Khost provinces.
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FROM THE ARCHIVES: One Year Ago — October 26, 2008
One year ago today, on the eighth day of my write-in campaign against U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann in Minnesota’s 6th Congressional District, in line with my focus on national security, I reported that Iraq’s largest Sunni Arab political party suspended all dealings with U.S. civilian and military personnel after U.S. and Iraqi forces carried out a raid in which a senior official of Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi’s Iraqi Islamic Party was killed.
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