5 NATO Troops Killed in Afghan Helicopter Crash
Five NATO troops died in a British helicopter crash Saturday in southern
Afghanistan, authorities said, the single deadliest day this year for
foreign forces as they prepare to withdraw from the country.
The helicopter crash came as an Afghan university official identified
two Americans killed in a shooting at a Kabul hospital earlier this
week, the latest incident of local security forces opening fire on those
they are supposed to protect.
The cause of the helicopter crash was not immediately known. Kandahar
provincial police spokesman Zia Durrani said the helicopter went down in
the province's Takhta Pul district in the southeast, about 50
kilometers (31 miles) from the Pakistani border. He said five
international troops were killed but did not know what caused the crash.
The coalition said it was investigating the circumstances of the crash
but said it had no reports of enemy activity in the area. The United
Kingdom's Defense Ministry confirmed that the helicopter was British,
but could not confirm the nationalities of the dead.
A Taliban spokesman claimed in a text message to journalists that the insurgents shot down the aircraft.
"Today, the mujahedeen hit the foreign forces' helicopter with a rocket,
and 12 soldiers on board were killed," spokesman Qari Yousef Ahmadi
said. The insurgents frequently exaggerate death tolls in their attacks
and falsely have claimed responsibility for incidents before.
The last deadliest day for coalition forces was Dec. 17, 2013, when a helicopter crash killed six U.S. service members.
Saturday's deaths bring to seven the number of international troops
killed this month. So far this year, 23 have been killed, according to
an Associated Press count, a far lower number than previous years as
international troops have pulled back to allowed Afghan security forces
to take the lead in security operations.
The NATO force is preparing to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan at
the end of this year, 13 years after the U.S.-led invasion to topple the
Taliban's hard-line Islamic regime for sheltering Osama bin Laden and
other al-Qaida leaders.
Violence has increased in Afghanistan ahead of the NATO withdrawal and
also in the weeks leading up to the country's April 5 election.
Preliminary results of the vote are due to be announced later Saturday.
Recently, there have been a number of so-called "insider attacks" —
incidents in which Afghan security forces fire on their comrades or
foreign trainers or civilians. Thursday, an Afghan police security guard
opened fire on foreigners as they entered the grounds of Cure
International Hospital, killing three people, including pediatrician Dr.
Jerry Umanos of Chicago.
On Saturday, Kabul University vice chancellor Mohammad Hadi Hadayati
identified the other two Americans killed in the attack as health clinic
administrator Jon Gabel and his visiting father, Gary, also from the
Chicago area. Jon Gabel's wife, also an American, was wounded, Hadayati
said.
"We have lost a great man, a great teacher, a man who was here only to serve the Afghan people," Hadayati said.
Jon Gabel worked for the U.S.-based charity Morning Star Development and
ran a health clinic at Kabul University, teaching computer science
classes in his spare time, Hadayati said. Jon Gabel's parents were
visiting from Chicago, and Hadayati had lunch with the whole family the
day before the attack.
"I was very honored to meet Jon's parents," Hadayati said. "Both his mother and father were so proud of their son."
The Gabel family went the next day to Cure hospital to meet Umanos.
What prompted the police guard to fire on the Americans was not clear.
The Interior Ministry released a statement Saturday identifying the
attacker as an ordinary police officer from Kabul's District 6 and not a
member of the Afghan Public Protection Force, as was initially
reported. The APPF is a separate police unit created to protect foreign
compounds.
The Afghan police guard shot himself in the stomach after the attack but
was saved by the Cure hospital staff and is in custody at a police
hospital.
Jon Gabel's employer, Colorado-based Morning Star Development, has four
medical clinics and several training centers across Afghanistan,
according to its website.
In 2012, an American doctor working for Morning Star and two of his
colleagues were abducted while returning from a clinic in eastern Kabul
province. The American, Dr. Dilip Joseph, was rescued by a U.S. military
operation that resulted in the death of a member of the Navy's Seal
Team Six, the same unit that killed bin Laden a year earlier in
Pakistan. Joseph's two colleagues were later released and were never
identified.
———
Associated Press writers Mirwais Khan in Kandahar, Afghanistan, and Jill Lawless in London contributed to this report.
COPY http://abcnews.go.com/
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