Five U.S. Troops Killed in Afghan Crash

24/11/2003| IslamWeb

A transport helicopter packed with American soldiers crashed near the main U.S. base in Afghanistan, killing at least five of them and wounding seven others, the military said. The cause of Sunday's crash about seven miles east of Bagram Air Base north of Kabul was not known. The U.S. military said it was investigating. The MH-53 transport helicopter was involved in an ongoing military operation dubbed Mountain Resolve, which is taking place in the east of the country, spokesman Maj. Richard Sater said at the air base. Bagram Air Base is home to most of the 11,600 coalition forces in Afghanistan. An additional 5,500 international peacekeepers patrol Kabul, the capital. Mountain Resolve has run since Nov. 7 in eastern Nuristan and Kunar provinces, but so far no major skirmishes with suspected Taliban and al-Qaida holdouts have taken place. Also Sunday, a coalition vehicle struck a land mine while patrolling an area of Afghanistan near the Pakistani border, seriously wounding two American soldiers from the Army's 10th Mountain Division. One of the soldiers lost a leg. Several reporters were traveling with the division's soldiers, but none was seriously hurt, the U.S. military said in a statement issued at Bagram. It gave no further information about the journalists. The explosion occurred at about 1 p.m. in Shkin, Paktika province, about 135 miles south of Kabul. A coalition base also is located there. The wounded soldiers received initial medical treatment at the scene, then were evacuated by air to a medical facility at nearby Salerno base outside the city of Khost, the statement said. The men were Staff Sgt. Roy Mitchell, of Batesville, Ind., and Sgt. 1st Class Michael Eichner, of Stonington, Pa., officials at Fort Drum in New York state said. Mitchell, 32, suffered burns to his face, neck and back, and had his left leg amputated. Eichner, 31, was wounded by shrapnel in his back and had a broken hand, the officials said. The soldiers were assigned to the 1st Battalion, 87th Infantry Regiment. On Friday, the violence hit Kabul when a rocket landed about 30 yards from the Intercontinental Hotel, shattering glass but causing no injuries. The hotel, a favorite among foreign visitors, is also near the site of an upcoming loya jirga, or grand council, set to ratify a new constitution in December. A week ago, a French woman who worked with the U.N. refugee agency was gunned down by suspected Taliban militants in the southern city of Ghazni. Bettina Goislard, 29, became the first international aid worker to be killed in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban regime two years ago. Some 35 Americans have died from hostile fire in Afghanistan since the October 2001 start of the Afghan war, according to the U.S. military. An American soldier taking part in the Mountain Resolve operation was killed Nov. 14 when his vehicle struck a land mine near Asadabad, the capital of Kunar province.