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Summary At least 31 members of the US special forces have died in a helicopter crash in eastern Afghanistan.
Talban shot down a NATO Chinook helicopter during an overnight operation in eastern Afghanistan, killing 31 people on board, a military official said on Saturday. It was one of the worst single-day losses of life for coalition troops in the nearly decade-long war and comes amid rising violence across the country.The majority of those killed were NATO troops but Afghan soldiers were also among the dead, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the crash was still being investigated.The helicopter was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade in the Tangi valley of the Wardak Province just west of Kabul. The Taliban claimed credit for the attack.US Air Force Capt. Justin Brockhoff, a NATO spokesman, confirmed the crash but could provide no further information, including what caused the crash or whether there were casualties.There were conflicting accounts on when the helicopter went down. A spokesman for the Taliban, Zabiullah Mujaheed, said Taliban shot down the helicopter around 11 pm Friday as it was launching an operation on a house where the militants were gathering in the Tangi Joyee region of Saydabad District in the eastern part of the province. Eight militants were killed in the fight that continued after the helicopter fell, he said.“The fresh reports from the site tells us that there are still Americans doing search operations for the bodies and pieces of the helicopter are on the ground,” Mr. Mujaheed said.The nationality of the NATO soldiers killed was not immediately known, though Americans were known to be carrying out the majority of operations in the area.
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