Civilian helicopter crash in Afghanistan kills 16

By Paul Tait

KABUL (Reuters) - A civilian helicopter crash that killed 16 people at a NATO base in southern Afghanistan pushed up the death toll on Sunday in the U.S. and allied effort to break the Taliban, adding to pressure on Washington and London.

In Afghanistan's east, a suicide bomber killed two police and a civilian at Torkham, an important border crossing point with Pakistan, officials said.

The U.S. military meanwhile condemned as Taliban propaganda a video of a captured American soldier, missing since just before major new operations were launched in the south.

The video showed the soldier, named by the Pentagon as 23-year-old private Bowe Bergdahl of Ketchum, Idaho, unhurt, but saying he was scared and missed his family.

Thousands of U.S. Marines and British troops have launched offensives in Helmand, a Taliban stronghold and the major producer of opium that funds their insurgency, as part of U.S. President Barack Obama's new strategy to combat the Islamist insurgents.

In Kandahar, the Taliban's birthplace adjacent to Helmand, Captain Ruben Hoornveld, a Dutch NATO spokesman, said there was no enemy involvement in the crash which occurred as the helicopter was taking off at the sprawling Kandahar Air Field.

Russia's Interfax news agency described the helicopter as an Mi-8 transporter, operated by a Russian firm, and said it had 17 passengers and three crew on board. It put the death toll at 15.

The nationalities of those killed were not immediately known.