The chopper crash-landed on Tuesday after experiencing technical problems during a flight in Afghanistan’s Faryab province, local officials confirmed.
Advertisement
While in August, at least 17 people, including 12 Afghan army soldiers, were killed in a helicopter crash in Shinkay, a district relatively free of militant activity in the otherwise volatile province of Zabul.
The Taliban said they had shot the helicopter down and captured 15 people.
“Security forces have started a clearance operation to free the captives”. “If the army doesn’t stop (its rescue attempts) we will execute them”, Damullah Wakil, a local Taliban official, told AFP. The helicopter was then set on fire.
Taliban spokesman Qari Yousuf Ahmadi says a total of five people were killed and 15 others, mostly military, were arrested. In the recent months, the province became a scene of fierce fighting between Islamist militants and troops loyal to the Afghan government in Kabul.
But an army officer in Faryab, insisting on anonymity because he was not authorized to speak with the media, said the civilian aircraft had been contracted to transport army personnel.
Mullah Omar’s family is not happy with the killing of the Taliban militants in infighting and may refuse to be part of the group led by Mansoor, the paper said.
Meanwhile in two separate blasts in the capital Kabul, six civilians were killed and six others were wounded, said Sediq Sediqqi, spokesman for the Interior Ministry.
Advertisement
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attacks.
