“The initial findings by our provincial security sources showed that a Pakistani chopper made an emergency landing at around midday in Azra district of Logar province”.
Advertisement
The tourists were on their way to Herat from Bamiyan and Ghor provinces when they were ambushed by Taliban gunmen, another spokesman said.
The group was taken by Italian military helicopters to a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation medical facility in Herat, according to coalition spokesman Colonel Michael Lawhorn. Britain’s foreign office has issued a statement about the incident, stating that the tourists were in the area for a humanitarian mission.
Local officials said 12 foreign travellers were being escorted by the Afghan army when they were ambushed on their way to the city of Herat in the west of the country.
On Monday, a hotel popular with foreigners in Kabul was attacked by the Taliban.
He said the insurgents had been repelled and the foreigners were being escorted to Herat city, adding that at least six foreigners and their Afghan driver were left wounded. None has been publicly identified, and the nationalities of the wounded were not known.
But that has not stopped some foreign tourists from travelling to Afghanistan, endowed with stunning landscapes and archaeological sites, many of them in volatile areas prone to the Taliban insurgency. The group may have been driving from Bamian, a north-central province that is home to historic, 1500-year-old Buddha statues carved into high cliffs. “The embassy of Pakistan in Kabul is actively pursuing the matter”, said the ministry in a statement.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said the government is exhausting “formal and informal channels” for recovery of the passengers.
He said it was not yet clear who had been injured, although the German foreign ministry said its citizen was unharmed.
He said the Afghan government had been informed about the sending of the helicopter to Uzbekistan.
Pakistan Army spokesman Lt. Gen. Asim Bajwa tweeted that General Raheel Sharif had telephoned Afghan President Ashraf Ghani to secure the release of the crew.
Advertisement
The Pakistani govt chopper crash landed in a lawless region of Afghan and the passengers are suspected of being held by insurgents.
