Taliban takes hostages from Mi-8 in bad weather

| April 22, 2013

The Stars & Stripes reports that the Taliban captured passengers from a Russian Mi-8 that was forced down in bad weather;

The chopper, a Russian Mil Mi-8 operated by the Afghan contractor Khorasan Cargo Airlines, was carrying as many as seven Turks, two Russians and one Afghan when it had to make an emergency landing Sunday in Azra district of Logar province, according to a Khorasan spokesman.

The crew had the misfortune of landing next to a former medical clinic that is now being used by the Taliban as a military outpost, according to Logar Provincial Council member Dr. Abdul Wali Wakil, who is from Azra district. Wakil put the number of Turks taken hostage at six.

Apparently, ISAF is letting the Afghans manage the rescue, so I don’t see it ending well for anyone. All of the hostages are civilians and the bird was carrying construction material.

Category: Terror War

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NHSparky

Shades of 1985…shades of 2015.

As far as the Taliban? Nuke ’em till they glow, then shoot ’em in the dark.

Ex-PH2

I don’t see this ending well, and I feel for those people.

Gravel

Considering the history of the Taliban and Russians I don’t see this ending well for the Russian civilians.

USMCE8Ret

They should have just crashed and killed themselves since the ISAF is going to manage the “rescue”. (Sorry, I just had to point out the obvious.)

Hondo

NHSparky: in that part of the world? Shades of pretty much every year since about 325BC, if not farther back.

Athena

May God protect these people as well as our own.

PintoNag

This is a terrible spot for these folks to be in. I agree with what Athena said about God protecting these people — because they’re going to need it.

Anonymous

They landed due to equipment/technical malfunction, weather was clear, the crew consisted of a Russian pilot Pavlenko, Afghan co-pilot Sadiq and Kyrgyz flight-engineer Nurgazi, plus 7 Turkish construction contractors. Once they were arrested by Taliban Freedom Fighters the helicopter was put on fire. Khurasan Cargo Airlines is a shirt company arranged by Yuriy Naumov and Mikhail Ereshchenko based on Sky Way Air helicopters, all their MI-8 helicopters have fake documents saying they were overhauled by russian helicopter makers, in fact they make those illegal documents by their own in their Sky Way Air office in Bishkek Kyrgyzstan