Pakistan Army chief General Raheel Sharif has requested Afghan President Ashraf Ghani’s assistance for the safe recovery of the abducted crew after its Punjab government’s helicopter crashed in Afghanistan last night.
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The helicopter MI-17 carrying six Pakistani engineers was travelling to Uzbekistan before it crash landed in Logar area of Afghanistan.
The foreign office in Islamabad said in a statement the entire crew was taken hostage by the Taliban but provided no further details.
It was also confirmed by official sources that relevant authorities had first gained permission for flying over Afghanistan air space and that the helicopter had the “needed over-flight permission to fly to Uzbekistan over Afghanistan”. Helicopter was going to Russian Federation for maintenance.
“General Nicolson assured all possible help in this regard”, it said.
On Thursday, Bajwa had said General Raheel called General John Nicholson, the Resolute Support Mission’s commander, hours after the helicopter made the crash landing.
Meanwhile, the Afghan defence ministry said it had launched a probe into the incident.
“We believe that it was our chopper but we need confirmation from the Afghan government”, an official of Punjab government told PTI.
TALIBAN militants attacked a group of 12 American and European tourists escorted by an Afghan army convoy in western Herat province yesterday, leaving at least seven people wounded as the insurgents step up nationwide attacks.
He continued to add that the Afghan government and ANA officials had been contacted for their assistance in recovering the crewmembers.
James Willcox, founder of another England-based adventure travel operator Untamed Borders, said his agency stopped using the Bamiyan-Herat road in 2009 because “it’s just not safe”.
Early reports pointed the finger of blame at the Taliban, but the group has not claimed responsibility.
Eight British tourists were among those traveling in the convoy, though it is unclear how many of them were wounded.
The Interior Ministry said “terrorists” used a truck full of explosives to breach the perimeter wall of the Northgate Hotel around 1:30 a.m.
Afghan security forces inspect a vehicle that was transporting foreign tourists before it was attacked Thursday by suspected Taliban militants in Herat Province in western Afghanistan.
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The Pakistani government helicopter, en route to Russian Federation for a routine overhaul, crash-landed in the Taliban-held Logar province in eastern Afghanistan on Thursday.
