Taliban says it shot down US civilian chopper

Kabul, Dec 3: The Taliban said today it had shot down a US civilian helicopter chartered by NATO that crashed in bad weather in southern Afghanistan.

''The chopper has crashed and there have been mortalities. We do not know how many,'' said Interior Ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary said, adding that the cause of yesterday's crash in a remote area of southern Kandahar province was not known.

Asked about a Taliban spokesman's claim of responsibility, he said: ''I cannot deny or confirm that.'' NATO said yesterday contact with the chartered aircraft had been lost as it was flying supplies from Kandahar to neighbouring Uruzgan province.

It is not known how many people were aboard, nor their nationalities. Bashary said the helicopter belonged to US security firm Dyncorp International.

A NATO spokesman on Sunday could not confirm the helicopter had crashed, nor how many people were on board and said the search was continuing.

Dyncorp describes itself as a provider of ''specialised mission-critical outsourced technical services to civilian and military government agencies''.

Its operations in Afghanistan also include police training.

REUTERS

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