US drone goes down in Afghanistan

Monday, 22 February 2016 9:08 AM [ Last Update: Monday, 22 February 2016 9:08 AM ]

In this file photo, an MQ-9 Reaper stands ready and fully armed on the flight line of Kandahar Air Field, in southern Afghanistan, with four AGM-114 Hellfire missiles, one GBU-12 Paveway II, and one GBU-38 Joint Direct Attack munitions mounted on its wings.

An unmanned aerial vehicle operated by the US Air Force has crashed at an airfield in Afghanistan’s southern province of Kandahar.

US Captain Bryan Bouchard said in a statement on Sunday that the MQ-9 Reaper drone went down at Kandahar Airfield.

He added that US Air Force authorities are investigating the cause of the crash, “but hostile fire was not a factor.”

On November 24, 2015, a surveillance drone belonging to the US-led NATO crashed in Afghanistan’s central province of Parwan. The Taliban militant group claimed it had brought downed the unmanned aircraft.

Just ten day earlier, another US unmanned aerial vehicle crashed in a remote mountainous area south of Kabul.

The United States regularly uses drones for airstrikes and spying missions in Afghanistan as well as Pakistan’s northwestern tribal belt near the Afghan border. Washington has also been conducting targeted killings through remotely-controlled armed drones in Somalia and Yemen.

The United States says the airstrikes only target militants, but according to local officials and witnesses, civilians have been the main victims of the attacks in most cases.

The United Nations says the US drone attacks are “targeted killings” that flout international law.

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