Helicopter crash kills 9 Afghan troops in central province

A helicopter crash overnight has taken the lives of at least nine Afghan military personnel in a central province, the defense ministry said Thursday.

In a statement, it said that four crew members of the MI-17 helicopter along with five security personnel were killed in the crash, in the Behsud district of Maidan Wradak province. It gave no further detail except to say that investigations were ongoing. Separately Thursday, a bombing killed four state employees commuting in a minibus in the capital Kabul, police said. Ferdaws Faramarz, spokesman for the Kabul police chief, said a woman was among the dead and nine other people were wounded in the attack in the city's north.