Four American troops die as helicopter crashes in southern Afghanistan

June 9th, 2010 - 7:10 pm ICT by BNO News  

KABUL (BNO NEWS) — Four American troops were killed on Wednesday when their helicopter crashed in southern Afghanistan, a spokesman for U.S. Forces Afghanistan told BNO News.

The helicopter carrying coalition service members went down in the Sangin district of Helmand province, but few details were immediately available. A spokesman for the regional government, Dawood Ahmadi, said the aircraft crashed due to hostile fire. NATO confirmed that.

Colonel Wayne Shanks, a spokesman for U.S. Forces in Afghanistan, said the four casualties were Americans. He said several Americans were also injured in the crash, but declined to provide further details pending notification of next of kin.

Shortly after the crash, Taliban spokesman Qari Yusuf Ahmadi claimed responsibility for the attack, according to the Xinhua news agency.

Also on Wednesday, a coalition service member died as a result of wounds sustained in an improvised explosive device (IED) attack in southern Afghanistan, NATO said. His nationality was not immediately released, but Shanks said the casualty was not American.

The casualties raise the number of coalition troops killed in Afghanistan so far this year to 242, according to a BNO News count. At least 153 of those were Americans.

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