Two Marines Killed in Afghanistan Helicopter Crash
Jan. 20 -- Two U.S. Marines are dead and five others injured, two of them critically, in the crash of their helicopter in a high mountain area of Afghanistan today.
Army Capt. Tom Bryant said all five of the injured Marines wereevacuated from the crash site to Bagram air base near the capital,Kabul, and then flown to another U.S. base by a C-130 transportplane.
The cause of the crash has not been confirmed, but there have been no reports of hostile fire.
The CH-53E Super Stallion left Bagram air base near Kabul on a resupply mission with another helicopter and later made a "hard landing" about 40 miles to the south, Bryant said, citing a Marine statement.
"The site was quickly secured," Bryant said. "We quickly gotmedical personnel and others on the ground, got them evacuated backhere. We have a robust medical treatment capability here."
Bryant would not say which U.S. forces were being resupplied. Small units of Special Forces have been scouring the country forleaders of Osama bin Laden's terror network.
At the U.S. military base in Kandahar, southern Afghanistan,Marine spokesman 1st Lt. James Jarvis said the identities of thoseinvolved would not be released until their families were notified.
The only other fatal crash of a U.S. military aircraft duringthe war occurred Oct. 19, when an Army helicoptercrashed in Pakistan, killing two Army Rangers.
An American soldier was killed in an ambush in easternAfghanistan earlier this month, and a Central Intelligence Agencywas killed during a prison uprising in the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif in November.
Changing of the Guard
Meanwhile, U.S. Army forces Saturday took control from the Marines of the United States' largest military base in Afghanistan, as the interim leader of the war-torn country traveled abroad for the first time.
The Army's 101st Airborne paratrooper division relieved Marines at the U.S. base at Kandahar airport without an official ceremony.
Most of the Marines, who at one point numbered about 2,000 at the base, are returning to their ships, although they will remain ready for deployment on special missions, a U.S. official told the Associated Press. It was left unclear how many Marines would remain at the Kandahar base.
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