95 American Soldiers Killed â€" Taliban

ISLAMABAD, Monday - Afghanistan’s Taliban regime said on Monday that 95 American soldiers had been killed since the launch of the US-led military drive one month ago. “The death toll of US soldiers in this war has now approximately reached 95,” the Taliban embassy in Pakistan said in a written statement. The United States has not confirmed the combat death of a single American soldier in Afghanistan. The Taliban statement regretted that the bodies of American troops could not be returned to their relatives, but blamed the United States for denying the incidents in which the alleged deaths had occurred. It specifically cited an incident in which the Taliban claimed to have shot down two US military helicopters on Friday, killing a number of American servicemen. The Pentagon said only one helicopter had crashed in severe weather, and that all the crew members had been rescued before an air strike was ordered to destroy the wreckage. “The real tragedy with the US soldiers and their families occurred when ... the US heavily bombed the wreckage of their own helicopters,” the Taliban said. “The resulting effect was not that they destroyed the helicopters but that they destroyed any hope of any survivors among its wreckage,” the statement said. “The US did this so that the bodies of the US soldiers could not be shown as evidence of casualties of this war to the American public.” The Pentagon has said it routinely destroys aircraft downed in hostile territory to prevent the equipment on board from falling into enemy hands. Ends