Nato was trying to determine yesterday if Taliban insurgents had shot down a troop-carrying helicopter in Afghanistan, killing 38 in the largest loss of life suffered by foreign forces in a single incident in 10 years of war.
In a bloody two days for foreign forces, another four Nato soldiers were killed in two separate attacks yesterday by insurgents in the country’s violent east and south, the coalition said.
The majority of foreign troops serving in those regions are American, although some French troops are also based in volatile Kapisa province in the east.
The French president’s office in Paris said two French soldiers were killed and five wounded when they were attacked by insurgents in Kapisa’s remote Tagab valley. There was no immediate confirmation of the nationalities of the other two. “The head of state expresses again France’s determination to continue to work with the International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) to restore peace and stability in this country and contribute to its development,” the president’s office said.
Thirty US soldiers – some from the Navy’s special forces Seal Team 6, the unit that killed al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden – seven Afghans and an interpreter died in Friday night’s crash, just two weeks after foreign troops began a security handover to Afghan forces.
The Taliban quickly claimed responsibility for bringing down the helicopter with a rocket-propelled grenade. A US official in Washington said it was believed to have been shot down. Nato-led Isaf confirmed the death toll, first announced by Afghan president Hamid Karzai, and said the cause was still being investigated.
Isaf officials in Kabul remained tight-lipped about possible causes of the crash and said the process of recovering the bodies from a valley about 80km (50 miles) southwest of the capital was still ongoing. The crash comes at a time of growing unease in the US and Europe about the unpopular and costly war. The last foreign combat troops are due to leave Afghanistan by the end of 2014, but some US lawmakers are asking if that is fast enough.
The CH47 Chinook crashed in central Maidan Wardak province in a hard-to-reach valley surrounded by rugged mountains.
Despite its proximity to Kabul, the area is one of the most dangerous in central Afghanistan, with fighters from the Taliban, the al-Qaeda-linked Haqqani network and other militant groups all active. “No words describe the sorrow we feel in the wake of this tragic loss,” said Gen John Allen. He took over from Gen David Petraeus three weeks ago as commander of all foreign troops in Afghanistan.
The crash was the deadliest single incident for US troops in Afghanistan since the Taliban was toppled by US-backed Afghan forces in late 2001, Isaf said.
A US official said some of the dead Americans were members of Seal Team 6, but none had been part of the bin-Laden raid in Pakistan in May.
US defence secretary Leon Panetta said on Saturday the US would “stay the course” to complete the mission in Afghanistan, a sentiment echoed by Nato secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen. The weekend’s devastating death toll will likely raise more questions about the security transition and how much longer troops should stay.
With doubts lingering about the cause of the crash, Mr Karzai met his security advisers yesterday to discuss what he called the “helicopter incident”. He warned them to be on guard for more attempts by insurgents to derail the transition process.
Violence is at its worst in Afghanistan since the start of the war, with high levels of foreign troop deaths and record civilian casualties in the first six months of 2011. Last year was the deadliest for foreign troops in Afghanistan with 711 killed. The crash in Maidan Wardak and yesterday’s deaths took the 2011 toll to at least 383. More than two-thirds were American.