Off the wire
• Candidates register for Taiwan leader election  • Spotlight: Int'l community urges restraint over Russian warplane downing, investigations underway  • Five knockoff Disney hotels fined in Shanghai  • Urgent: 3 killed, 18 seized after helicopter makes hard landing in Afghanistan  • Australia has already met 2020 target on lower greenhouse emissions: official  • Bank chief stresses financial security for more open China  • China, Peru bolster industrial capacity, investment cooperation  • Foreign car sales in South Korea expected to top 250,000 in 2016  • U.S. military mistakes hospital for Taliban target in deadly strike: report  • UN chief slams deadly attack on blue helmets in Mali  
You are here: 　 Home

1st LD: 3 killed, 18 seized after helicopter makes crash landing in Afghanistan

Xinhua, November 25, 2015 Adjust font size:

Two Afghan army personnel and one foreign national were killed and 18 others seized by Taliban insurgents after a contracted helicopter made a crash landing crash in northern Afghanistan's province of Faryab on Tuesday, the Afghan Defense Ministry confirmed Wednesday.

"A Mi-17 helicopter belonging to a foreign company was travelling from Mazar-i-Sharif city to northern Faryab province on Tuesday. At around 2:00 p.m. (local time), the chopper made an emergency landing following a technical problem in Pashton Kot district of Faryab province," the ministry said in a statement.

The helicopter squad engaged the Taliban insurgents' fighters shortly after the incident. As a result two Afghan army soldiers and one foreigner belonging to the company were killed, the statement said without giving the nationality of the killed foreigner.

The Faryab province with Maimana as its capital, 425 km northwest of Afghan capital, has been the scene of fierce clashes between the Afghan security forces and Taliban militants in the past couples of months. Endit