Helicopter down in Afghanistan

A large U.S. military helicopter crashed Tuesday afternoon while carrying 17 American troops to reinforce a counterterrorism mission in eastern Afghanistan, U.S. officials confirmed. "Initial reports indicate the crash may have been caused by hostile fire," the military said in a statement this morning.

  WaPo article

Yeah, I'd say there's a good chance of that.

Afghan officials said the CH-47 Chinook helicopter was hit by a rocket while flying over Konar province, near the Pakistani border. A purported spokesman for the Taliban Islamic militia asserted responsibility for the attack.

[...]

The incident, the first time a U.S. military helicopter in Afghanistan has been reported shot down since Operation Anaconda in early 2002, underscored the continuing danger to U.S. and Afghan troops from armed anti-government groups, especially the Taliban.

[...]

Tuesday's incident was the second crash of a Chinook in Afghanistan in the last three months. On April 6, a Chinook crashed during a dust storm, killing 15 troops and three American civilians in the deadliest military air accident since the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.

[...]

"There's still a lot of fighting in Afghanistan," said a senior U.S. officer. "The American people shouldn't be surprised we're continuing to take casualties."

Perhaps the senior U.S. officer should be telling that to the asshats in the White House.

The American people shouldn't be surprised, but their "leaders" and their "free press" keep telling them everything is really going quite well.

Apparently, the UN knows differently.

Earlier Tuesday, roadside bombings killed five Afghan policemen in Konar province. One bomb exploded on a road near Asadabad, about 120 miles east of Kabul, killing a district police chief and his two sons and wounding seven officers. Several rockets also landed near a U.N.-Afghan election commission office in Asadabad, causing no casualties.

[...]

Jean Arnault, the U.N. special representative for Afghanistan, told the U.N. Security Council on Friday that worsening security conditions had negatively affected election preparations and that military operations were not enough to counteract Taliban efforts to destabilize the country.

And maybe a word to Karzai would also be helpful.

A spokesman for President Hamid Karzai, Jawad Ludin, told reporters Tuesday in Kabul, the capital, that anti-government militias were "very feeble" when compared with the increasing capability of Afghan security forces, the help from the international community and "the will of the Afghan people."

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Update 1:40pm:

All 17 U.S. troops aboard an American helicopter that crashed after being hit by ground fire in an anti-militant operation in Afghanistan are believed to have died, a U.S. official said on Wednesday.

  Reuters article

Update 7/1/05: Unsurprisingly, there's more to the story than we were told.