Troops have secured the wreckage of a U.S. helicopter that crashed in Afghanistan on Wednesday, leaving one Canadian, five Americans and a Briton dead.
The Taliban has claimed responsibility for shooting down the CH-47 Chinook helicopter in Helmand province, one of the most volatile regions of the country.
“There will be a full investigation,” said Maj. John Thomas, a spokesman for NATO’s International Security Assistance Force. “We will try to determine everything that happened and to fully investigate the site.”
Initial reports have suggested that the helicopter was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade, a U.S. official told The Canadian Press. The five crew members were American, while the Canadian and the Briton were military passengers on the aircraft.
The identity of the Canadian has not been released.
The helicopter went down at about 9 p.m. local time Wednesday in Helmand province, NATO officials said.
A rescue team arriving at the scene was then ambushed by insurgents and called for an air strike. One Afghan civilian was injured by gunfire.
Purported Taliban spokesperson Qari Yousef Ahmadi said militants shot down the helicopter, but that claim has not been independently verified.
“We have weapons that we have used to target helicopters before,” he told AP.
NATO would only say the cause of the crash was “being determined by military officials.”
In recent months, U.S. and British forces have fought against insurgents in Kajaki, where a large hydroelectric dam is being repaired.
The Chinook has two rotors and is mainly used for transport. It can fit about 40 soldiers in addition to a small crew.
Eight U.S. personnel died last February when their Chinook crashed in the southern province of Zabul, but the incident was not the result of a militant attack.
Another 10 U.S. soldiers died in a Chinook crash in May 2006, after an attempted nighttime landing.
But a 2005 U.S. helicopter crash, that killed 16 Americans, is believed to have been caused by a rocket-propelled grenade fired by militants.
In total, 57 Canadian military personnel have now been killed in Afghanistan.
With files from The Associated Press; CTV.ca News Staff
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