KABUL – Security forces searched a remote area of northern Afghanistan on Thursday after villagers reported an unidentified aircraft crashed into the towering Hindu Kush mountains.
Details were sketchy due to the remoteness of the crash site, said Abdul Majid Azimi, intelligence chief of Baghlan province. He had no further details, including the type of aircraft.
NATO forces spokesman Lt. j.g. Tommy Groves said the international coalition has no reports of any military aircraft having crashed — including those belonging to NATO's International Security Assistance Force and the Afghan National Army.
U.N. spokesman Dan McNorton said all United Nations aircraft were accounted for.
Baghlan provincial police chief Baghlan Kabir Andarabi said a police team had been sent to the area, but could not reach the crash site on a mountainside in Andarab district. He said mobile phone contacts were spotty in the area.
"We sent our police, but unfortunately it's up high in the Hindu Kush. It's difficult to reach," Andarabi said. He said that because of the cold and darkness, the police would spend the night in a village at the base of the mountains and continue searching Friday.
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