Taliban Repels Afghan Forces Trying To Reach U.S. Jet Crash Site (Updated)
Radio Free Europe Based on reporting by Reuters and AFP
January 28, 2020 12:31 GMT
Afghan security forces and Taliban fighters clashed in the central province of Ghazni where a U.S. military plane crashed, officials and the militant group say, as the government tried to reach the wreckage site.
The U.S. military says a Bombardier E-11A aircraft, used for electronic surveillance over Afghanistan, crashed in Deh Yak district on January 28, but disputed Taliban claims to have brought it down. The military did not say how many people were aboard or if there were any casualties....
The site “is being covered by the Air Force. Some say there are two bodies there, but some people there say there are more," Wardak told AFP on January 28.
Reuters quoted the official as giving different figures: "As per our information, there are four bodies and two on board were alive and they are missing."
A little more here
https://www.rferl.org/a/taliban-repels-afghan-forces-trying-to-reach-u-s-jet-crash-site/30402086.html
This could be a much bigger story.
Update as of 8:26 am est
U.S. military retrieves bodies but Afghan jet crash remains a mystery
American forces were able to reach the wreckage of a U.S. Air Force jet in Afghanistan overnight to retrieve remains, but it remained unclear what brought the high-tech aircraft down in Taliban territory in the previous day.
The Taliban claimed it shot the plane down, and while a U.S. official said Monday that initial information brought "no indications the crash was caused by enemy fire," a U.S. military spokesperson told CBS News national security correspondent David Martin the cause of the crash was still under investigation. The Pentagon has not officially ruled anything out.
U.S. officials told Martin the pilot of the Bombardier E-11A declared an in-flight emergency shortly before the crash. U.S. helicopters were finally able to reach the crash site overnight to recover the bodies of two crewmen.
A spokesman for the police in Ghazni province, where the plane came down, told CBS News on Tuesday that even Afghanistan's domestic forces had been unable to reach the crash site, which was under Taliban control. The spokesman, Ahmad Khan Sirat, told CBS News' Ahmad Mukhtar that Afghan forces clashed with the Taliban overnight, causing no casualties but blocking the security forces' access to the site.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/plane-crash-afghanistan-us-military-retrieves-bodies-crash-remains-mystery-taliban-claims-2020-01-28/
