Spain suspects Afghan copter crash was accident

MADRID (Reuters) – Spanish investigators suspect an
accident rather than an attack caused the military helicopter
crash in Afghanistan that killed all 17 Spanish soldiers on
board, officials said on Wednesday.

But the armed forces still were not completely ruling out
that the helicopter may have been shot down on Tuesday, a
spokesman in the prime minister’s office said.

“Nothing has been ruled out, but the experts say that so
far there is no evidence that it could have been an attack nor
friendly fire,” the spokesman said.

“There were very strong winds in the area,” he said.

Officials with the NATO-led International Security
Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan have been saying from
the start the cause was probably an accident. Spain is
conducting an investigation.

Defense Minister Jose Bono, who flew to Afghanistan on
Tuesday, has informed Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez
Zapatero of the initial findings, the spokesman said.

The Spanish troops with the NATO-led peacekeeping operation
were on an exercise near the western city of Herat when their
helicopter went down in a flat area surrounded by mountains.

A second helicopter flying nearby spotted a column of black
smoke rising from the scene and, suspecting there may have been
hostile fire, made an emergency landing that slightly wounded
five soldiers.

Herat is in the heart of a relatively secure part of
Afghanistan. The Taliban and its Islamic allies are less active
there than in the eastern and southern parts of the country.

A senior Taliban commander, Mullah Dadullah, said
guerrillas had shot down the chopper but he offered no proof.