KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (REUTERS) — Fourteen U.S. soldiers were injured and their transport helicopter suffered extensive damage when it crashed while landing in rough terrain in eastern Afghanistan Monday, U.S. military officials said.
The U.S. Army CH-47 Chinook helicopter made what U.S. military officials described as a “hard landing” near the provincial capital of Khost, injuring 14 of the 24 people aboard and severely damaging the aircraft.
U.S. Army Col. Frank Wiercianski told reporters at Kandahar airport in southern Afghanistan that all 24 people on board were evacuated and 14 required medical treatment.
No one was killed and none of the injuries sustained were life-threatening, he said.
“I’m very relieved to report that 100 percent of all personnel were evacuated from that site and were taken to a medical facility,” Wiercianski said.
The injured soldiers were from the 101st Airborne Division, based at Fort Campbell, Ky.
“Hopefully all will be back on duty very soon,” Wiercianski said. The aircraft, which left Kandahar late Monday, hit a hole when it landed and tipped on its side, he said.
U.S. Central Command in Tampa, Fla., said the injured soldiers were being treated at a hospital inside Afghanistan.
Four of the soldiers suffered serious injuries such as hip and leg fractures, while 10 others had minor injuries such as other broken bones, abrasions and cuts, said Navy Cmdr. Dan Keesee, a spokesman for Central Command.
Keesee said the cause of the accident was under investigation and it was unclear if any of the six crew members were injured in the crash.
Bin Laden had kidney dialysis in September
Osama bin Laden underwent clandestine kidney dialysis in a Pakistani military hospital the day before members of his al Qaeda network launched attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, Pakistani intelligence sources told CBS News in a report aired Monday.
Bin Laden, the accused mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, received the treatment at a military hospital in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, the source told CBS.
A hospital nurse told CBS the hospital’s urology department was cleared of its usual staff and replaced with another group of medical workers.
“It was a treatment for a very special person,” said the nurse, who declined to be identified. “The special team was obviously up to no good.”
Another hospital employee told CBS he saw a “mysterious” man being helped out of a car.
“He is the man we know as Osama bin Laden. I also heard two army officers talking to each other,” said the man, who also requested anonymity. “They were saying to each other that Osama bin Laden has to be watched carefully and looked after.”
Hospital officials and the Pakistani government denied the reports.
Bin Laden has not been seen since December, when he released a videotaped message to al-Jazeera television that appeared to have been recorded in early to mid-December.
Earlier this month, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said the United States has no way of knowing whether bin Laden had died of kidney problems but added that President Bush would not view that as “an unwelcome event.”
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has said bin Laden may have died of a kidney ailment.
“The photographs … show him extremely weak,” Musharraf told CNN. “He is a kidney patient, and I know that he has donated two dialysis machines to Afghanistan and one was specifically for his own personal use.”
In November, the Saudi daily newspaper al-Watan said bin Laden had ordered his aides to kill him if he risked falling into the hands of U.S. troops.
Washington launched airstrikes on Afghanistan in October to flush out bin Laden and punish his Taliban protectors after the September attacks that killed more than 3,000 people.