Taliban claims it shot down US army plane after crash which left 11 dead

TALIBAN militants claim they shot down a US military plane which crashed while it was taking off in Afghanistan.

Eleven people were killed, including six US soldiers and five civilian contractors when the Hercules aircraft came down.  

The C-130 military transport plane crashed at an airfield shortly after midnight on Friday local time, 7.30pm on Thursday in the UK. 

A US military spokesman said the crash is being investigated, and he did not rule out that more dead or wounded people may be on the ground. 

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said on Twitter that the group shot down the plane, but US officials said there was no evidence of enemy fire at the time. 

The dead were employed by the US-led international force in Afghanistan.

                                                                           

A statement from the 455th Air Expeditionary Wing at Bagram Airfield described it as "an accident," without offering details.

The crash came hours after Afghan troops recaptured the strategic northern city of Kunduz amid fierce clashes with Taliban militants, three days after losing the provincial capital.

The Taliban has been fighting to regain power since being toppled by a US-led intervention in 2001 in the wake of the 9/11 terror attacks orchestrated by Al-Qaida.

In 2011, Taliban militants shot down a U.S. military Chinook helicopter, killing all 38 people on board.

Nearly 10,000 US troops are still stationed in Afghanistan after plans for a gradual withdrawal were changed earlier this year.

President Barack Obama has vowed to leave only a small force in Afghanistan, based in the American embassy, by the end of next year.

Culled from Dailystar,