An MI-17 helicopter owned by Punjab provincial government was on its way to Russian Federation for routine maintenance when it was forced to make crash-landing yesterday in Logar, a province with large areas under Taliban control.
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The Afghan defence ministry on Friday confirmed that Pakistani government had sought permission from the Afghan foreign and aviation ministries to use the country’s airspace.
The Pakistani Embassy in Kabul has reportedly announced that the chopper was en route to Russian Federation for maintenance.
A helicopter carrying six people crashed in Afghanistan’s Logar province on Thursday. The media reported that Taliban militants had taken the crew hostage.
The fate of the passengers on board the aircraft was still unclear, but a Taliban commander claimed the seven were “in safe hands” with the militants. They said United States and Afghan officials had promised to help.
According to the data provided by the Afghan government, between 2012 and 2014 the country saw a great drop in the money that the country received from tourists, from $168 million in 2012 to $91 million in 2014.
Taliban sources on Friday confirmed all crew members of a Punjab government helicopter which crashed in Afghanistan a day earlier are in their custody.
Meanwhile, Chief Minister of Punjab, Shahbaz Sharif visited the families of the helicopter’s pilots Colonel (retd) Shafiqur Rehman, Colonel (retd.) Nasir Mehmood and Colonel (retd) Safdar Hussein in Lahore today expressed his heartfelt sympathies.
In a separate development, the USA has withheld $300m in military assistance to Pakistan after the Pentagon concluded that the country was not taking adequate action against the Haqqani network, a Pakistan-based armed group aligned with the Taliban.
Military spokesman Lt General Asim Bajwa said in a statement that On Thursday, Chief of Pakistan Army General Raheel Sharif spoke with the top U.S. commander General John Nicholson asking for the global military help in recovering the Pakistani personnel.
The foreign office in Islamabad said in a statement the entire crew was taken hostage by the Taliban but provided no further details.
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“We are profoundly concerned about the safety of the whole (seven-member) team that was travelling on the helicopter”. The government of Pakistan supported the former Taliban regime in Afghanistan, and some Taliban leaders have been based inside Pakistan for years.
