Taliban lured US troops before shooting copter

An official said a total of 38 people -- 30 US troops, many of them special forces, plus seven Afghan commandos and an interpreter -- were killed when their Chinook came down during an anti-Taliban operation.The crash marked the biggest single loss of life for American and NATO forces since the US-led invasion of Afghanistan toppled the Taliban in late 2001, shortly after the September 11 attacks.The senior government official told a news agency on condition of anonymity that a Taliban commander, Qari Tahir, lured US forces to the scene by tipping them off that a Taliban meeting was taking place.Now its confirmed that the helicopter was shot down and it was a trap that was set by a Taliban commander, said the official, citing intelligence gathered from the area.The Taliban knew which route the helicopter would take, he added.Thats the only route, so they took position on the either side of the valley on mountains and as the helicopter approached, they attacked it with rockets and other modern weapons. It was brought down by multiple shots.The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity as he was not authorised to discuss the issue, also said President Hamid Karzais US-backed government thinks the attack was retaliation for the killing of Osama bin Laden.The Taliban themselves did not make such an assertion on claiming responsibility for the attack, which took place in the Taliban-infested Sayd Abad district of Wardak province, just southwest of Kabul.US media says the dead included members of the Navys SEAL Team Six, the secretive unit behind the daring raid that killed bin Laden in Pakistan in May.When questioned about whether the attack was linked to a trap laid by a Taliban commander, the militias spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said: We have used various tactics over the past 10 years. This could also be a tactic. The informant could have been one of our comrades.Brigadier General Carsten Jacobsen, spokesman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), told journalists on Monday that the crash represented a tragic loss.Were still investigating this incident so we have no picture of what was the cause for the incident and that is what the investigation is basically all about, he said at a press briefing.The campaign is going to continue, we will continue to relentlessly pursue.Jacobsen also played down the suggestion that the Taliban had used new types of weapons to down the helicopter.Were not seeing any specific new types of weapons on the battlefield, he said.ISAF declined to comment on the claims of a Taliban trap and said the bodies had been recovered from the crash site.Afghan officials said an insurgent rocket downed the helicopter, which was said to have broken into several parts after being hit.In eastern Afghanistan on Monday, another helicopter made a hard landing in Paktya province, although no one was injured, ISAF said.Initial reporting indicates there was no enemy activity in the area at the time of the incident, it added in a statement.