Afghan official says military helicopter crash kills 17

Police chief Abdul Rahman Rahimi said the pre-dawn blast was near a Defence Ministry compound, but that all of the victims were civilians, including women and children. The Defense Ministry said the crash appeared to have been caused by a technical problem, without elaborating.

A bomb hidden in a truck exploded in the centre of the Afghan capital, killing seven people and wounding about 400, police and health officials said Friday. The militants often exaggerate battlefield gains.

The bulk of the fleet is made up of aging Mi-17 transport aircraft, though it was not clear what kind of helicopter crashed on Thursday.

The insurgents have on occasion brought down North Atlantic Treaty Organisation helicopters, notably a US Chinook in 2011 which killed 30 Americans, but such incidents have been rare.

Global Crisis Group senior analyst Graeme Smith told AFP that “maintenance is a serious issue for the Afghan Air Force and it is hurting their ability to provide air support to ground forces”.

“The Taliban is increasingly using anti-aircraft weapons, posing a risk to Afghan air forces”, Smith said.

The crash occurred in the province’s Shinkay district, about 272 miles southwest of capital Kabul.

Mullah Akhtar Mansoor’s appointment by the Taliban Shura is reported to have caused some fissures within the organization but this cannot be independently verified, not least because much of the information on this has come either from unnamed “Taliban sources” or from sources within the Afghan intelligence, which is no friend of the Taliban.The Taliban on Thursday confirmed in that Mullah Omar died of an illness some time ago and asserted they elected Mansoor as his successor.

Meanwhile, the Afghan government believes it can seize on the Taliban leadership crisis it has created by announcing that Mullah Mohammad Omar has been dead for more than two years to further weaken the insurgency.

The report comes after a string of deadly attacks by Taliban fighters, both in their traditional southern strongholds such as Helmand province and in new fronts such as northern Kunduz province.

The acrimonious power struggle has cast a pall over a fragile peace process aimed at ending Afghanistan’s long war.