KABUL, PESHAWAR – Nato-led forces have killed the Taliban militants responsible for shooting down a US helicopter last weekend, the top US and Nato commander in Afghanistan said yesterday.
The disclosure by Gen John Allen came during a briefing on the crash that killed 30 US soldiers – most of them elite navy seals – in the single deadliest incident for US forces in the Afghan war. Eight Afghans also died.
US president Barack Obama flew to Dover air force base on Tuesday to watch the arrival of the remains of those killed and the military has launched an investigation into the incident.
Gen Allen defended the decision to send in the elite team, saying it was deemed necessary at the time to go after Taliban “elements that were escaping” from an ongoing operation to target an important Taliban leader.
“We committed a force to contain that element from getting out. And, of course, in the process of that, the aircraft was struck by an RPG [rocket-propelled grenade] and crashed,” Gen Allen told Pentagon reporters via video-conference from Kabul.
He said a subsequent air strike at about midnight on August 8th killed other Taliban insurgents who were believed to be behind the attack – an assertion the Taliban immediately challenged.
The Nato-led International Security Assistance Force named those killed as Taliban leader Mullah Mohibullah and the insurgent who it said fired the shot tied to the August 6th downing of the CH-47 helicopter. It said the two men were attempting to flee the country.
Gen Allen acknowledged that the main Taliban leader sought in the August 6th operation was still at large.
Separately, a US drone strike killed at least 21 suspected militants in Pakistan’s North Waziristan region yesterday, officials said, just days after Pakistan called for “clear terms of engagement” in the US-Pakistan relationship.
Among those targeted in the attack on a house 3km (two miles) east of the main town of Miranshah were members of the Haqqani network responsible for the worsening insurgency in eastern Afghanistan and foreign militants.
It was the largest strike since July 12th, when US drones killed 48 suspected militants in North Waziristan.
Drone strikes have been a major source of friction between the United States and Pakistan, with ties at their worst since US special forces killed al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden in a secret raid in a Pakistani garrison town in May.
Last week President Asif Ali Zardari called for “clear terms of engagement” between the two countries in the fight against al-Qaeda and Taliban members in the country. – (Reuters)