A militant video purports to show Taliban fighters with a surface-to-air missile, claiming they used a similar one to shoot down a Pakistani helicopter carrying diplomats.
The video, obtained by The Associated Press , includes a message from the Pakistani Taliban claiming they fired a missile from a distance of 3 kilometres to down the helicopter on Friday.
“The missile hit the tail rotor,” a written message in Urdu says at the video’s start.
ADVERTISEMENT
The crash killed the ambassadors to Pakistan from the Philippines and Norway and the wives of the ambassadors from Malaysia and Indonesia, as well as three Pakistani crew members. Twelve passengers, many of them diplomats, were injured.
Previously, Pakistan said a technical failure caused the crash and dismissed an earlier Taliban claim as opportunistic.
A later Taliban statement on Sunday said fighters’ missile hit the rotor as the helicopter turned, saving it from being destroyed in mid-air.
ADVERTISEMENT
“No matter if the Pakistani government accepts it or not, it doesn’t bother us,” the statement said. “God willing, we will carry out (more) such attacks.”