Afghanistan, meet Iraq - Iraq, Afghanistan:
A U.S. CH-47 Chinook transport helicopter crashed Tuesday while ferrying reinforcements for counterterrorism operations in eastern Afghanistan, the military said. The Taliban claimed responsibility in a phone call to The Associated Press....CNN is now saying around 16 US soldiers were on board. Jesus Christ.
The crash was the second of a Chinook helicopter in Afghanistan this year. On April 6, 15 U.S. service members and three American civilians were killed when their chopper went down in a sandstorm while returning to the main U.S. base at Bagram.
The U.S. military has launched operations in several areas along the border with Pakistan. Those offensives target remnants of al-Qaida and the hard-line Taliban movement, as well as foreign fighters using high mountain passes to cross over from Pakistan.
Tuesday's crash comes after three months of unprecedented fighting that has killed about 465 suspected insurgents, 29 U.S. troops, 43 Afghan police and soldiers, and 125 civilians.
The violence has left much of Afghanistan off-limits to aid workers and has reinforced concerns that the war here is escalating into a conflict on the scale of that in Iraq.
