Helicopter crash kills 5 NATO troops in Afghanistan; deadliest day this year for alliance
KABUL, Afghanistan — A British helicopter crashed in southern Afghanistan on Saturday, killing five NATO troops in the single deadliest day this year for foreign forces as they prepare to withdraw from the country, officials said.
The British defense ministry confirmed that all five of the dead were British. Maj. Gen. Richard Felton, commander of the Joint Helicopter Command, said the crash appeared to be “a tragic accident.”
In Kabul, an Afghan university official identified two Americans killed by a local policeman at a hospital in the capital earlier this week. The shooting was the latest by a member of Afghanistan’s security forces against those they are supposed to protect.
The cause of the helicopter crash was not immediately known. Kandahar provincial police spokesman Zia Durrani said the aircraft went down in the province’s Takhta Pul district in the southeast, about 30 miles from the Pakistani border.
The coalition said it was investigating the circumstances of the crash but said it had no reports of enemy activity in the area.
Obama carefully calibrates messages
to China, trying to both counter and court
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — President Barack Obama is hopscotching through China’s neighborhood with a carefully calibrated message for Beijing, trying both to counter and court.
During visits to U.S. allies, Obama has signaled that American military power can blunt Chinese aggression in the Asia-Pacific region, even as he urges Beijing to use its growing clout to help resolve international disputes with Russia and North Korea.
The dual tracks underscore Beijing’s outsized importance to Obama’s four-country swing through Asia, even though China is absent from his itinerary.
The president opened a long-awaited visit to Malaysia on Saturday, following stops in Japan and South Korea, and ahead of a visit to the Philippines.
Obama’s trip comes at a tense time for the region, where China’s aggressive stance in territorial disputes has its smaller neighbors on edge.
Lawyer: Suspect in girl’s fatal stabbing on day of junior prom is under psychiatric evaluation
HARTFORD, Conn. — A teenager charged with stabbing a fellow high school student to death on the day of their junior prom is being held in a hospital under psychiatric evaluation where he will likely remain for two weeks, one of his attorneys said Saturday.
The name of the 16-year-old suspect was not officially released but people who saw him taken into custody identified him as Chris Plaskon, a friend of the victims and an athlete described as genial and respectful.
Plaskon is accused of stabbing to death Maren Sanchez, 16, in the hallway of Jonathan Law High School in Milford. The attack occurred Friday morning, hours before the school’s junior prom, and authorities were investigating whether Sanchez was stabbed after turning down his invitation to the dance.
The suspect, who is charged as a juvenile offender, will not appear at an arraignment scheduled for Monday in New Haven, attorney Richard Meehan said. The hospital commitment can last 15 days, according to Meehan. He said doctors typically order such involuntary commitments in cases where someone in custody is considered a danger to himself.
Meehan said the suspect’s family is also reeling from the attack.
By wire sources
