14 Americans Die in Afghan Helicopter Crashes

14 Americans Die in Afghan Helicopter Crashes
By DEXTER FILKINS
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: October 26, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/27/world/asia/27afghan.html?ref=global-home


KABUL, Afghanistan — Fourteen Americans were killed in Afghanistan on Monday in two crashes involving helicopters, making it one of the deadliest days in America’s eight-year war here.

Neither crash appeared to involve hostile fire, American military officials said.

In the most lethal of the two crashes, seven American servicemen and three agents with the United States Drug Enforcement Administration died when their Chinook twin-rotor helicopter crashed in western Afghanistan after a firefight with Taliban insurgents. Twenty-six people were injured: 11 American servicemen, one American civilian and 14 Afghan soldiers.

The crash followed a gun battle with insurgents that broke out when the Americans and Afghans raided a compound believed to harbor drug traffickers. The Americans and the Afghans killed more than a dozen fighters, military officials in Kabul said. The Chinook crashed as the American and Afghan forces were leaving.

It was unclear exactly where either the firefight or the crash occurred in western Afghanistan. A spokesman for the American command here said that officers were not disclosing the location of the crash because they wanted to protect the Americans who were still working at the scene to recover the helicopter.

Drug enforcement agents often accompany American soldiers and Marines on operations in Afghanistan. The country is the largest producer of opium in the world, and the Taliban oversee and tax much of that production. Firefights of the kind that unfolded Monday are not uncommon.

Capt. Elizabeth Mathias, a spokesman for the American military here, said the military “was “98 percent sure” that insurgents had not caused the crash.

In the second crash, four American servicemen died and two were injured when two helicopters collided. The military released few details, but said that insurgents were not to blame.

The American military said it carried out a series of operations in eastern and southern Afghanistan on Sunday, killing more than a dozen insurgents and detaining six people suspected of being militants.

Two other American service members were killed in separate attacks over the weekend in eastern Afghanistan, the military said. One died when struck by a homemade bomb, the other from wounds suffered during an insurgent attack.

President Obama, speaking Monday afternoon to hundreds of uniformed men and women at the Naval Air Station in Jacksonville, Fla., paid tribute to the American casualties, saying, “Like all those who give their lives in service to America, they were doing their duty, and they were doing this nation proud.

“They were willing to risk their lives, in this case, to prevent Afghanistan from once again becoming a safe haven for Al Qaeda and its extremist allies,” Mr. Obama said. “Today, they gave their lives to protect ours.”

Mr. Obama met with his top security advisers at the White House before flying to Florida, where he met privately with families of soldiers and sailors killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The president did not preview his developing Afghanistan strategy during the speech, but defended the timetable of his decision.

“I will never rush the solemn decision of sending you into harm’s way,” Mr. Obama said. “I won’t risk your lives unless it is absolutely necessary. And if it is necessary, we will back you up. Because you deserve the strategy, the clear mission, the defined goals and the equipment and support you need to get the job done.”

As Afghanistan prepared for a runoff presidential election on Nov. 7, Abdullah Abdullah, the challenger to President Hamid Karzai, on Monday demanded the resignation of the chief of the country’s Independent Election Commission, on the grounds that he could not ensure a clean vote in the second round.

The target of Mr. Abdullah’s demand is Azizullah Ludin, a Karzai appointee. Last month, after the voting was done and reports of fraud had begun to roll in, Mr. Ludin and the rest of the commissioners — also appointed by Mr. Karzai — decided that they were unable to disqualify fraudulent ballots.

In the end, another body, the Electoral Complaints Commission, did that for them. It threw out nearly a million ballots cast for Mr. Karzai, a third of his total. That pulled Mr. Karzai below the 50 percent threshold needed to win outright; hence the runoff with Mr. Abdullah, the second-place finisher.

“He has left no credibility for the institution, and unfortunately for himself,” Mr. Abdullah said of Mr. Ludin.

Speaking at a news conference in Kabul, Mr. Abdullah made a list of other demands that he said needed to be met for the second round to remain untainted by fraud: dismissing local election officials in the areas where the most prolific fraud occurred, suspending at least four ministers who are campaigning for Mr. Karzai, and allowing more observers to accompany local police chiefs and district governors.

Western diplomats in Kabul have said that some of those changes are already in the works. But so far, there is little evidence that Afghan officials — most of them appointed by Mr. Karzai — intend to carry them out. In an interview last week, Mr. Ludin said he would not dismiss any local election officials until after he had conducted thorough investigations, which, he said, could not be completed until after the runoff election.

Mr. Abdullah also demanded the closing of what he called “ghost” polling centers: polling sites in areas too insecure for government forces or election observers to reach. Many such polling centers never opened on Election Day; it was in these places that Mr. Karzai’s backers are believed to have orchestrated much of the fraud.

Western officials here are pressing Mr. Ludin to drastically reduce the number of polling centers in insecure areas. But so far, there has been no public announcements of exactly how many will be closed.

Mr. Karzai, speaking in a radio interview, dismissed Mr. Abdullah’s demands.

“If we talk about making changes in the government just seven days before the election, it will damage the process, and the election,” Mr. Karzai told the BBC. “It will not be in the interest of the country.”

Abdul Waheed Wafa contributed reporting from Kabul, and Jeff Zeleny from Jacksonville, Fla.