Islamabad, Aug 9 (ANI): Pentagon spokesman Colonel Dave Lapan has said that the recent incident of a US forces' helicopter being shot down after being lured by the Taliban "does not represent any kind of watershed or trend".
An Afghan official had said on Monday that the Taliban lured US forces into an elaborate trap to shoot down their helicopter, killing 30 American troops in the deadliest such incident of the war.
But Lapan tried to safeguard the image of the US forces, saying: "This one single incident does not represent any kind of watershed or trend. We still have the Taliban on the run, we've reversed the momentum that they had. But they are still going to inflict casualties, that's what they do," The Express Tribune reports.
Earlier, the senior Afghan official had claimed that that a Taliban commander, Qari Tahir, lured the US forces to the scene by tipping them off that a Taliban meeting was taking place.
He also said four Pakistanis helped Tahir carry out the strike.
"Now it's confirmed that the helicopter was shot down and it was a trap that was set by a Taliban commander," said the official, adding: "The Taliban knew which route the helicopter would take. That's the only route, so they took position on either side of the valley on mountains and as the helicopter approached, they attacked it with rockets and other modern weapons. It was brought down by multiple shots."
He also said that President Hamid Karzai's government 'thinks' the attack was carried out to express their frustration over the killing of al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden. (ANI)
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