An investigation is apparently underway by the US to determine what caused a US military aircraft to crash in Deh Yak district in the central province of Ghazni, south of Kabul, on Monday afternoon, with local reporting that the US military is monitoring the crash location from the air, deterring people on the ground from getting close to the site.
On Monday evening (Afghan time), US forces in Afghanistan confirmed that the plane belonged to the US, saying: “While the cause of crash is under investigation, there are no indications the crash was caused by enemy fire. We will provide additional information as it becomes available,” US Forces-Afghanistan spokesman Col. Sonny Leggett said.
But the former head of the National Directorate of Security (NDS), Rahmatullah Nabil, said that “no can deny the possibility that the aircraft had been hit by a missile.”
“Undoubtedly, in view of recent tensions between the US and Iran, Iran doesn’t have the capacity to counter the US directly, so we cannot reject the possibility that Iran provided anti-aircraft weapons to the Taliban,” said Nabil.
The crash happened in Taliban-controlled area.
On Tuesday the Taliban made several statements about the incident, but it is unclear whether or not they claim responsibility for the crash, based on the ambiguous language of those statements.
The AP reported that the Bombardier E-11A is a US Air Force electronic surveillance plane, which carries hi-tech equipment: "The so-called Battlefield Airborne Communications Node can be carried on unmanned or crewed aircraft like the E-11A. It is used by the military to extend the range of radio signals and can be used to convert the output of one device to another, such as connecting a radio to a telephone."
The AP said the US military uses the system as “Wi-Fi in the sky,” in areas where communications are otherwise difficult, elevating signals above obstacles like mountains."
“The higher this aircraft flies, the better it provides coverage--this aircraft flies very high, so I don’t think that this aircraft was shot down from the ground,” said Abdul Wahab Wardak, a former commander of the Afghan Air Force.
“Reports were received of engine failure from this plane,” said Ghulam Masoom Masoomi, head of Air Traffic at Hamid Karzai International Airport on Monday, before the US spokesman confirmed the plane belonged to the US military.
On the one hand, local officials said that the “Taliban have taken the bodies of dead passengers from the plane,” and some who have remained alive were “taken into Taliban custody.”
On the other hand, on Tuesday afternoon members of Ghazni’s provincial police told TOLOnews that US forces had taken the two dead bodies of the crushed plane from Ghazni on Tuesday.
“The latest information indicates that there were about seven to eight people on the plane--the Taliban seized three dead bodies,” said Abdul Jame Jame, a member of the Ghazni provincial council.