Crash In Afghan, 2 Die in Nato Copter

Tuesday, July 14, 2009 at 3:09 pm

KABUL: A helicopter carrying civilian contractors working for foreign troops crashed in Afghanistan Tuesday killing two people on board in the south of the country, a spokesman for the NATO-led force said. Crash In Afghan, 2 Die in Nato Copter

It was not immediately clear why the helicopter came down in the Sangin district of Helmand province, where U.S. Marines, U.K. and Afghan forces have been pressing assaults against Taliban strongholds in recent weeks.

“We can confirm that a civilian helicopter has gone down in Sangin district,” the spokesman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, or ISAF, said.

“So far we have two people killed and one wounded, but that toll could change. The helicopter was carrying civilian contractors,” he added.

Earlier, Sangin’s district chief Fazlul Haq said he saw the chopper on fire before it crashed.

“It was in the sky on fire and then went down,” he told a foreign news agency reporter in the south.