The Taliban displayed parts of what it said was a US helicopter in the streets of the capital Kabul today amid reports that four US servicemen died when a helicopter was shot down this week.
Pakistani officials confirmed a helicopter crashed in Pakistan early yesterday after taking fire from the Taliban but would not comment on casualties. The Pentagon in Washington said it had no reports of any helicopter loss.
Kabul residents said a group of armed Taliban soldiers drove through the city with what appeared to be the control panel of a military helicopter on display in their four-wheel-drive vehicle.
Later they stopped on a main road and announced to the public that the wreckage was from a US helicopter shot down by Taliban troops.
It was not clear where the wreckage came from, but a Taliban spokesman earlier today said four Americans were killed when their helicopter came under fire and crashed near the border in southwestern Pakistan.
Pakistani officials said a US helicopter crashed in Chaghi district, near the Afghan border and the Dalbandin air base in the southwestern province of Baluchistan.
The base is used by US forces but the US Defence Department denied any US helicopter had crashed.
Pentagon spokesman Maj Jay Steuck said the US military had received no reports of a helicopter going down over Pakistan or Afghanistan "as of today".
A US embassy spokesman in Pakistan said he could not confirm or deny that a helicopter had crashed on Sunday night or yesterday.
The Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Pressquoted residents of Chaghi district, 30 kilometres south of the border, as saying the helicopter went down overnight on Sunday.
"It is a helicopter which was shot by the Taliban but it managed to reach Baluchistan where it crashed," a resident was quoted as saying.
AFP