On September 29, a helicopter of the Afghan Air Force (AAF) “crash landed” in the village of Mandi Kol of the district of Kohi Safi in the eastern province of Parwan, according to the TOLO TV. A spokesman for Parwan’ governor told the Afghan TV channel that fiver personnel of the AAF and the Afghan National Army (ANA) were killed and injured in the crash.
Hours later, the Taliban claimed responsibility for the incident and said that its fighters shot down the helicopter when it was about to carry out a raid in Kohi Safi. Counterparty to TOLO TV report that said the helicopter “crash landed,” Voice of Jihad [the news agency of the Taliban] said that local eyewitnesses saw the helicopter “burst into flames as it plunged into the ground.”
An alleged photo of the AAF helicopter crash that was released by the Taliban, Click to see full-size.
Experts were not able to identify the type of the helicopter due to the low quality of the image released by the Taliban. However, TOLO said that the helicopter was carrying ANA Commands. This suggests that it was a Russian-made Mi-17 from the AAF’s “Special Mission Wing.”
This was the second helicopter of the AAF crashed this month. On September 15, a MI-17 crashed in the district of Khak-e-Safid in the western province of Farah killing four officers of the AAF and the ANA. Back then, the Taliban said its fighters shot down the helicopter, but Afghan officials blamed the crash on a “technical failure.”
There have been Soviet era helicopters in Afghanistan since, well, the Russo-Afghan War. They probably brought it down with an old RPG.
LOL. If anything…TOW.
What?
You know…TOW.
I know what the TOW is but what does that have to do with what I just said?
You say RPG, I say more likely TOW.
That is hardly plausible; there have been reports of Humveys being taken from the Afghan government but we don’t give our allies much in the way of anti-tank weapons (notice they were flying an old Russian helicopter). Also, Soviet RPGs were made to be as easy to use as possible while there’s no one who could have taught the Taliban how to use a TOW.
Of course it is!! There is a huge amount of arms available courtesy of the Syrian civil war, all available to who? The highest bidder.
That is even less plausible.
The US supplied ISIS etc with manpads in Syria, and now ISIS is in Afghanistan. The stingers the US supplied to the Mujahideen ended up all over the world, and numerous countries, including Iran copied them.
If an American soldier can use a TOW, anybody could use a TOW
TOW is useless against helos unless sitting on a landing pad, RPG is cheaper and better and in any case the Taliban now have manpads.
Well TOW worked well enough in Syria – even on helicopters, RPG would have been a very lucky hit, could have been manpads as well.
It would be a very silly helo pilot that would fly low enough for an RPG
Well the Mi-17 (correct Mil-17) the Afghani’s have are either newer ones or even refurbished/upgraded ones (done in Slovakia). Even Nato countries use large numbers of Mil-17 because Chinooks and Blackhawks can’t fly as high (Chinook vs Mil-17) and/or can’t carry as much (Blackhawk vs Mil-17) (https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/tories-mum-on-russian-choppers-lease-1.906209). The US (also operating Mil-17 in Afghanistan) Lost 15 BlackHawk (5 Acknowledged to being shot down) and 26 Chinooks (13 Acknowledged to being shot down). Despite much wider usage only 5 Mil-17 (make this 6) got sofar lost in Afghanistan. There has been a saying in Afghanistan “to shoot down a russian helicopter you need One RPG or Two,….to shoot down a western helicopter,…well a handful of sand will do” ;)
The puppet Afghan regime ANA has barely 30 helicopters and 4 have been shot down or lost this year, not a very auspicious beginning. The Taliban seem to using manpads now and the attrition rate will get higher for ANA puppets and their US/NATO occupation masters.
Everything is connected, the US breaks its deal with Iran and declares economic war, how do you think Iran will react? Just like the US/UK pretends that they don’t arm ISIS and al Qaeda Iran would deny it arms Yemen or Afghanistan.
They Probably DID SHOOT DOWN HELICOPTER
100% certainty, or a “birdstrike” :)