Monday October 22 12:06 PM ET
Taliban, U.S. Clash Verbally Over Helicopter
By Sayed Salahuddin
KABUL, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Afghanistan's ruling Taliban said Monday they had recovered wreckage from a U.S. helicopter in Helmand province, saying it was evidence of successful resistance to the military strikes against their country.
But the Pentagon swiftly said no U.S. helicopters had been lost inside the country since Washington launched air strikes more than two weeks ago to punish the ruling Taliban for harboring terrorism suspect Osama bin Laden (news - web sites).
The Taliban said parts of a downed helicopter were found in Helmand province after a U.S. commando raid Saturday that publicly launched the land campaign.
Qatar's al-Jazeera television showed close-up footage of what it said the Taliban described as new aircraft wheels and a piece of metal stenciled with the English words ``Shock. Loud Engineering.''
A U.S. company, Loud Engineering & Manufacturing Inc, based in Ontario, California, makes parts for the CH-47 Chinook helicopter.
``Right now I have been informed by Amirul Monineen's office that they have discovered pieces of an American helicopter in Baba Sahib hills... some burned tires and parts and traces of blood,'' Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) quoted Maulawi Najibullah, Taliban consul in the frontier city of Peshawar, as saying.
Amirul Monineen, or leader of the faithful, is the title given to reclusive Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, who the United States has vowed to push out of power for not handing over bin Laden, prime suspect behind the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington.
Afghanistan's envoy to Pakistan, Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, told a news conference in Islamabad U.S. helicopters had tried to retrieve the wreckage in Helmand but were driven off by Taliban fighters.
PENTAGON DENIAL
There was no independent confirmation of the reports and Zaeef was unable to answer questions on what had happened to the U.S. personnel.
The United States has admitted one of its ``Black Hawk'' helicopters crashed at the weekend, but said it went down in Pakistan while on standby for a search and rescue mission and that no U.S. aircraft went down inside Afghanistan.
``We have not lost any helicopters in Afghanistan. If they found helicopter wreckage it wasn't ours,'' Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke told Reuters in Washington.
The verbal clash comes as the wreckage of a U.S. helicopter was airlifted by two other helicopters to Panjgore airport in the southwestern province of Baluchistan, witnesses at the airbase said Monday.
It was not known if it was the ``Black Hawk'' that crashed on Saturday at the Dalbandin airbase, also in southwestern Baluchistan. ''A damaged U.S. helicopter was carried by two others on Saturday evening ... after that Makran scout (paramilitary forces) closed down the airport,'' a witness told Reuters by telephone. He said the helicopter's rotors were badly damaged.
The crash of the ``Black Hawk'' was confirmed by a Pakistani official at Dalbandin.
A Pakistan-based Afghan news service also reported Monday that a U.S. helicopter gunship attacked a hill in eastern Afghanistan close to the Pakistani border.
The helicopter strafed Shamshad hill adjoining the Pakistani border in the afternoon but was forced to flee by ground fire and did not cause any damage, the Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) quoted a Taliban official as saying.
The target of the attack, one of the first reported by a U.S. helicopter gunship, was not immediately known.
