KABUL — A British helicopter crashed in southern Afghanistan on Saturday, killing five NATO troops on the single deadliest day this year for foreign forces as they prepare to withdraw from the country, officials said.
The British defense ministry confirmed that all five of the dead were British.
Maj. Gen. Richard Felton, commander of the Joint Helicopter Command, said the crash appeared to be “a tragic accident.”
In Kabul, an Afghan university official identified two of the three Americans killed by a local police officer at a hospital in the capital last week.
Kabul University vice chancellor Mohammad Hadi Hadayati identified the victims as health clinic administrator John Gabel, who worked for the Colorado Springs-based charity Morning Star Development, and his visiting father, Gary, both from the Chicago area. John Gabel’s wife was wounded. Pediatrician Dr. Jerry Umanos of Chicago was identified earlier.
The cause of the helicopter crash was not immediately known. Kandahar provincial police spokesman Zia Durrani said the aircraft went down in the province’s Takhta Pul district in the southeast, about 31 miles from the Pakistani border.
The coalition said it was investigating the circumstances of the crash but said it had no reports of enemy activity in the area.
The crash is one of the deadliest air accidents involving Britain’s forces in Afghanistan. In September 2006, a Nimrod surveillance aircraft exploded in midair while supporting NATO ground operations near Kandahar, killing 14 servicemen on board.
A Taliban spokesman claimed in a text message to journalists Saturday that the insurgents shot down the helicopter.
“Today, the mujahedeen hit the foreign forces’ helicopter with a rocket, and 12 soldiers on board were killed,” said spokesman Qari Yousef Ahmadi. The insurgents frequently exaggerate death tolls and have falsely 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 allow Afghan security forces to take the lead in security operations.
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