“We have launched an investigation into the incident.and the government has instructed security forces to spare no efforts to secure the release of the crew members”, the Afghan defence ministry said in a statement. Qari Saifullah Saif, a commander of the Tahrik-e-Taliban Pakistan as the Pakistani Taliban are known, said the crew are in “safe hands” of the local TTP commander, Adam Kochi, in neighboring Afghanistan’s Logar province.
Advertisement
Relations between USA and Pakistan have been frayed over the past decade, with officials in the United States frustrated by what they term Pakistan’s unwillingness to act against armed groups groups such as the Afghan Taliban and the Haqqani network.
The foreign office in Islamabad said in a statement the entire crew was taken hostage by the Taliban but provided no further details.
Pakistan’s Army Staff General Raheel Sharif called on Afghan President Ashraf Ghani on Friday and sought help in the safe recovery of the crewmembers of Punjab government’s helicopter that crash-landed in eastern Afghanistan on Thursday. The chopper had seven people on board at the time of the incident and all of them survived and had been taken hostage, reports the Dawn.
The group insisted on traveling in one bus and declined an army or police escort, officials said.
“The government has no control of the area” where the helicopter crashed and burst into flames.
After the crash, the Taliban reportedly set the helicopter on fire and took its crew members as captives.
A Foreign Office spokeswoman said: “We are providing assistance to British nationals involved in the attack in Herat and are co-ordinating closely with local authorities”.
The helicopter was being sent to Uzbekistan for overhauling when it crashed in Azra district, in the restive Afghan province of Logar, the official added.
Advertisement
But Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid claimed the group had killed the foreign “invaders” as well as seven “slave” Afghan soldiers in a series of tweets. Muqim Jamshady, who is the chief executive of Afghan Logistics and Tours, based in Kabul, told the BBC that in 2003 around 300 foreign people used his services a year, but now the number was reduced to 100. In February, an Army officer was killed when a military helicopter crashed in northern Pakistan on a routine night training mission.
