Hostile fire forced two US helicopters to make emergency landings in volatile southern Afghanistan, injuring five US soldiers and an Afghan, the US military said Monday as three Afghan troops were wounded by a remote-controlled bomb.
Another improvised bomb exploded between a patrol of Dutch peacekeepers in the northern province of Baghland but none was hurt while a civilian mine clearer was killed removing an explosive at the military airport in Kabul, the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force said.
The bomb that wounded the three Afghan soldiers was detonated in volatile southern Zabul province as their patrol passed on the way to investigate a tip-off about a hideout of Taleban militants, provincial spokesman Gulab Shaha Alikhil said.
Meanwhile the US military said two of its Chinook heavy-lift choppers that were forced to make emergency landings in the insurgency-hit south on Sunday had both "received enemy fire".
The choppers were involved in US-led coalition operations against Taleban rebels and other Islamic militants.
The coalition was investigating what kind of weapons were used against the helicopters, Lieutenant Colonel Laurent Fox, a spokesman for the 20,000 strong coalition, told reporters Monday.
The first helicopter landed at a forward operating base in Uruzgan province, wounding an Afghan soldier, and the second in neighbouring Kandahar, slightly injuring five US soldiers, Fox said. Both areas are hotbeds for attacks by militants loyal to the Taleban regime ousted in a US-led invasion in 2001.
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