Tuesday, July 14, 2009 KANDAHAR: A helicopter carrying civilian contractors working for foreign troops in Afghanistan crashed on Tuesday in the south of the country killing at least six people on board, NATO said. It was not immediately clear why the helicopter came down in the Sangin district of Helmand province, where US Marines, British and Afghan forces are pressing assaults against Taliban strongholds in the run-up to key elections. "At around 9:00 am (0430 GMT) this morning, a private helicopter has crashed outside Sangin military base.We have at least six people killed," said a spokesman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). "The passengers were all civilians," he added, speaking from the biggest NATO base in southern Afghanistan at Kandahar. Another ISAF spokesman said the aircraft was carrying civilian contractors, but their nationalities were not immediately known and it was not clear how many people were on board.
BAGHDAD: Nearly 500 U.S. Army combat engineers who specialize in clearing roads of explosives started shifting to southern Afghanistan."We are probably going to be the beginning of the influx you are going to see to Afghanistan," Lt. Col. Kevin Landers, commander of the Fort Carson, Colo.-based 4th Engineer Battalion, said as crews packed crates and cleaned vehicles for the flight to Kandahar.Obama has ordered 17,000 more U.S. soldiers and Marines to Afghanistan to bolster the 38,000 American troops already battling the resurgent Taliban."We are going to take this footprint out of Iraq," said Landers, whose battalion received word of its reassignment last month just after taking command of clearing roads in Baghdad of bombs and debris.
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