A helicopter crash has killed at least six foreigners today in Afghanistan's southern Helmand province, a Nato official said.
The Taliban, leading the insurgency against foreign troops and the Afghan government, said it had shot down a Chinook helicopter.
The six dead included civilian contractors, a spokesman for the Nato-led force in Kabul said. He did not give any more details.
An Afghan official who witnessed the crash told Reuters the helicopter was being used by foreign forces, but spokesmen for the British and the United States said it was a civilian aircraft.
About 4,000 US Marines and hundreds of Nato and Afghan forces are taking part in an offensive in various parts of Helmand against the Taliban, the biggest by foreign troops since they ousted the Islamist group in 2001.
The operation comes ahead of next month's presidential election, which is crucial both for Kabul and for a US administration that has identified Afghanistan and neighbouring Pakistan as its top foreign policy priority.
Since the launch of the operation in Helmand, the Taliban have also stepped up their attacks in other parts of Afghanistan against foreign troops and the Afghan government, making July as the bloodiest month for foreign troops for nearly a year.
On Monday, two US soldiers from the Nato-led force were killed in Helmand, a spokesman for the US military said. Prior to that, at least 15 foreign servicemen had been killed since the start of the assault in Helmand, part of the main bastion for Taliban guerrillas and the main drug producing region of Afghanistan, the world's top supplier of heroin.
Reuters