The Taliban say they shot the machine down. The situation remains unclear.
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The picture is to show the wreckage of the crashed plane. However, the circumstances are still completely unclear.
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(Dpa / Reuters) After a plane crashed in Afghanistan, the US military confirmed that it was an Air Force Bombardier E-11A. The Air Force chief of staff, General Dave Goldfein, said this to journalists on Monday. Details of possible victims have not been released. The Reuters news agency, citing officials, reports that there were said to be fewer than ten people on board. The military rejected that the plane may have been brought down by enemy fire.
The militant Islamist Taliban previously said they had shot down the machine. The extremists explained on Monday evening that it was a US spy plane. The plane collected intelligence information in Gasni province and was crashed in Deh Jak district. The Taliban reported that the entire crew had been killed. The wreck and the bodies were still at the scene of the accident, the Taliban spokesman wrote on Twitter. The Islamists’ statements cannot be verified independently.
In the past, the Taliban have repeatedly claimed that military aircraft or helicopters belonging to the US military or the Afghan army crashed. At the same time, the U.S. military and the Afghan Department of Defense are reluctant to confirm kills. They mostly speak of technical problems with the aircraft.
On Monday afternoon, local officials from the Gasni province said that shortly after 1 p.m. (local time), a passenger plane crashed in the Deh Jak district of this province. Local media had reported that it was an aircraft belonging to the state airline Ariana Airlines. Ariana Airlines immediately denied it. However, neither the civil aviation authority nor the Afghan Ministry of Transport wanted to confirm the crash of a passenger plane.
After the appearance of videos, the evidence that it could be a plane of the US military increased. According to the Defense Blog, the wreck on the videos resembles a US Air Force Bombardier Global 6000 / E-11A. However, the authenticity of the pictures could not be checked.
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