A U.S. helicopter crashed while on combat operations in Afghanistan, killing all 10 American soldiers and crew on board, the military said on Saturday.

The CH-47 Chinook crashed late on Friday near Asadabad, the capital of the mountainous eastern province of Kunar.

Taliban fighters claimed they shot down the helicopter but the U.S. military said there was no indication the crash was a result of enemy fire.

Taliban shot down an MH-47 -- a special forces version of the CH-47 -- with a rocket-propelled grenade in Kunar in June last year. All 16 U.S. troops on board were killed.

U.S. forces and Afghan government launched an offensive in Kunar last month.

President Hamid Karzai said he was deeply saddened by the deaths in Friday's crash.

A Taliban commander, Mullah Dadullah, speaking by telephone from an undisclosed location, said Taliban fighters had shot down the helicopter on Friday with a "new weapon." A Taliban spokesman said the helicopter was downed with a surface-to-air missile.

The Taliban also claimed to have shot down a Spanish military helicopter last August. All 17 people on board were killed.

Thirty foreign soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan this year, 23 of them Americans.

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