5 Americans killed in Afghanistan helicopter crash
Six US marines have been killed in a helicopter crash in Helmand province, southern Afghanistan, the NATO military command in Kabul said today.
A helicopter crash in southern Afghanistan killed five American NATO troops.
According to BBC News, the helicopter went down in the Daman district of Kandahar province on Monday. US officials confirmed that all those killed were Americans and that the crash was caused by a rainstorm, not enemy activity.
More from GlobalPost: Afghanistan: Helicopter crash kills 12 NATO troops
The incident was the first coalition helicopter crash with fatalities since September, reported CNN, when two crashes killed 11 service members.
Two were killed in a crash in early September, while seven more service members were killed and two were injured at the end of the month. Both crashes did not involve enemy fire.
Eleven people, including seven US soldiers, were also killed when a Black Hawk helicopter went down in Southern Afghanistan last August, according to The Guardian.
Monday's crash came on the same day that five Afghan police and soldiers and two US troops were killed in eastern Afghanistan in what was called an insider attack by someone wearing an Afghan military uniform.