An helicopter crashed in a mountainous area in northern Afghanistan - but it was not immediately known if there were casualties or who it belonged to, dpa quoted local officials as saying today. The helicopter crashed on the Hindu Kush mountains in northern Baghlan province on Thursday morning, Abdul Majeed, provincial intelligence chief said. He said he did not know if the aircraft belonged to Afghan or international troops stationed in the country or if there were any casualties. A Kabul-based spokesman for NATO-led forces said "All our aircraft were accounted for." "As far as I know all the UN air assets are accounted for," Dan McNorton, a UN spokesman in Afghanistan said. General Murad Ali Murad, top Afghan army commander in northern region also said that the crashed plane did not belong to army forces. An Afghan police search unit was dispatched to the area, Mohammad Asif, police chief of Khenjan district, where the helicopter came down, said. He ruled out any hostile fire, saying, "There is no Taliban or other government enemies in this area." "It is already dark now, so I asked my team to stay in the area and resume the search early tomorrow morning," he said, adding that based on information provided by local villagers, the area where the chopper came down was identified. In order to transport cargo around this mountainous country, the international aid organizations and international troops sometimes charter airplanes operated by foreign private firms.
