Afghanistan's Taliban militia on Saturday claimed that its forces had shot down an American helicopter in which two US air crew members were killed. “I have received indications from our officials that Taliban soldiers hit the American helicopter which later crashed in Pakistani territory,” Afghan deputy ambassador Suhail Shaheen said in Islamabad.
US officials in Washington admitted that the two American military personnel were killed on Saturday in Pakistan as a result of a helicopter accident while supporting 'operation enduring freedom.' Pakistan also confirmed the helicopter crash in its territory but said that it was an accident.
“Two crew members of a standby rescue helicopter were killed when it crashed today,” Pakistan's defence spokesman Maj Gen Rashid Qureshi told reporters, adding that the chopper which crashed in the southwestern province of Baluchistan was a standby helicopter used for rescue operations.
The helicopter crash followed reports that US special forces which began ground operations on Friday had clashed with Taliban fighters on the ground in Afghanistan for the first time since America began air strikes on October 7.
Reports from the Pakistan border town Quetta said that more than 100 elite troops backed by AC-130 flying gunships took part in operations against Taliban troops in Kandahar,
Meanwhile Abdul Hanan Hemat, head of the Taliban news agency ‘Bakhtar’, confirmed the landing of the American troops in the Baba Sahib mountains in district Arghandab in Kandahar.
“The American troops fled after the Taliban forces fired at them,” Hemat was quoted as saying by Pakistani news agency.
Bureau Report