The incident took place in the Achin district of the eastern Nangarhar province. According to the NATO statement, the crew was safely recovered by rescue personnel, with two crew members receiving treatment for minor injuries sustained during the landing at a coalition medical facility.
NATO said the landing is under investigation and the aircraft is being recovered.
Taliban extremists, known for exaggerating the impact and casualties of their attacks, claimed in a statement that they opened fire on the helicopter during the landing at around 2:00 a.m., simultaneously thwarting a raid attempt and killing everyone on board.
The militants are also fond of taking responsibility for incidents that NATO says either never occurred or weren’t caused by conflict, according to Stars and Stripes.
There are hundreds of members of Daesh’s Afghan affiliate group ISIS-Khorasan or "ISIS-K" in the Achin District, the same formation that claimed responsibility for Monday’s attack on the Iraqi Embassy in Kabul.
Weeks after the US military dropped the so-called “Mother of all bombs” (MOAB, which actually stands for Massive Ordinance Air Blast) on a Daesh outpost, the extremists killed two US Army Rangers in Achin. They were part of an operation with the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces at the time of the attack.
