US chopper downed: four reported dead

ISLAMABAD, Nov 6 (AFP) - A US military helicopter crashed in Pakistan after taking fire from Afghanistan's Taliban militia, officials said Tuesday, and a local news agency reported four personnel dead.

News of the incident Sunday came as US warplanes continued to hammer at Taliban positions in northern and northeast Afghanistan, where the opposition claimed a new victory in its drive to reach the strategic city of Mazar-i-Sharif.

Pakistani officials said a US helicopter had crashed to the north of Dalbandin air base in southwestern Baluchistan province near the Afghan border. But they had no details of casualties.

"It took fire in Afghanistan and it managed to enter into Pakistan where it crashed," said a senior Baluchistan provincial official who asked not to be named.

"The Americans tried to remove the debris," the official said. "They managed to remove some of it but some of it is still lying there."

Pentagon spokesman Major Jay Steuck said the US military had received no report of a helicopter going down over Pakistan, Afghanistan or anywhere else.

The Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press quoted unidentified sources as saying that four US servicemen were killed in the crash.

AIP quoted residents of Chaghi district, some 30 kilometres (19 miles) south of the border, as saying the helicopter went down overnight Sunday.

"It is a helicopter which was shot by the Taliban but it managed to reach Baluchistan where it crashed," a resident was quoted as saying.

Meanwhile, the anti-Taliban forces said they had taken complete control of Zari district, 70 kilometers (45 miles) southwest of Mazar-i-Sharif, from the ruling Taliban militia at dawn after an all-night battle.

Zari is just west of Aq-Kupruk, where fighting has also raged this week as the opposition Northern Alliance tries to press toward Taliban-held Mazar-i-Sharif, the capital of Balkh province.

"At around dawn this morning we were able to capture it (Zari) completely," said Qari Qudratullah, a spokesman for opposition commander Atta Mohammad. "Now it is calm, there is no movement from the Taliban side."

Qudratullah also reported new fighting but no significant movement around Aq-Kupruk, which the opposition claimed to have taken Saturday only to lose part of it back to the Taliban.

Abdul Henan Hemat, the chief of the Taliban's official Bakhter news agency, confirmed fighting was continuing in Aq-Kupruk and neighbouring Keshendeh districts Tuesday morning.

"The opposition are making offensives and US planes bombed the front lines at Keshendeh and Aq-Kupruk last night and today. It is still going on," Hemat said.

Taliban Education Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi claimed the opposition had suffered heavy casualties for no result.

"The internal crusade forces (opposition) tried eight times during the night to launch an offensive in Keshendeh and Aq-Kupruk," Muttaqi said. "They are suffering heavy casualties."

The northern provinces of Balkh and Samangan have shaped up as a crucial battlefield in the month-old US campaign. They border on Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, from where supplies and US troops could enter Afghanistan.

US warplanes struck Taliban frontlines close to the Tajik border on Tuesday in their sixth attack in the region in the last 10 days.

Bombers have stepped up strikes on Taliban positions in the area as a key part of the US drive against terrorists and their protectors following the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington.

But a month after the first air strikes, the Taliban Islamic militia remained defiant in its refusal to hand over terror suspect Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda network.

"We are ready for a long war and we hope to defeat the United States, which the rest of the world calls a superpower," Muttaqi said Monday.

"The US should revise its wrong, terrorist policies, otherwise this war, which may last for decades, will burn many Americans and Afghans."

The Northern Alliance, which controls about 10 percent of Afghanistan, continued preparations for a threatened ground offensive on the shattered capital Kabul.

"We are ready, but it all depends on our strategy and the circumstances," opposition military chief General Mohammad Qasim Fahim told reporters Monday at a military parade at a base in Jabal Seraj north of Kabul.

Still, the anti-Taliban alliance remains desperately short of fuel, cash and ammunition, and junior commanders said they were far from ready to launch major offensive.

This article is from The Revival's first website, where its publication date was not recorded. The date shown above is approximate.