KABUL, Afghanistan -The death toll from the fiery crash of a U.S. helicopter in Afghanistan rose to 18 after searchers found the remains of two more American soldiers in the wreckage, the military said Saturday.
Investigators dispatched from the United States were heading to the site of Wednesday's crash, the deadliest for Americans since the fall of the Taliban in 2001, to examine whether bad weather was to blame.
Thirteen U.S. service members and three civilian contractors were initially confirmed dead in the crash of the CH-47 Chinook near Ghazni, 80 miles south of the Afghan capital, Kabul.
Spokeswoman Lt. Cindy Moore said the remains of two other soldiers listed as missing were found on Friday, raising the number of American troops killed to 15.
All the remains were taken to Bagram, the American base north of Kabul. From there, they will be flown to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware for identification, Moore said.
The names of the victims and the nationalities of the three contractors have not been released.
Moore said investigators from the U.S. Army's Combat Readiness Center at Fort Rucker, Ala., were traveling to Afghanistan on Saturday.
The helicopter crashed as it returned to Bagram from a mission to deliver mail and supplies and transport personnel in the insurgency-plagued south. The charred wreckage was found in an area of desert near a cluster of brick kilns.
Officials reported no sign of enemy fire and suggested bad visibility and strong winds may have caused a fatal pilot error or technical problem. A second Chinook made it safely back.
According to U.S. government statistics, 137 American soldiers have died in and around Afghanistan since Operation Enduring Freedom began after the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States.
Accidents, including a string of helicopter crashes and explosions caused by mines and munitions left over from the country's long wars, have proven almost as deadly as attacks from Taliban-led insurgents.
The previous worst incident in Afghanistan was an accidental explosion at an arms dump in Ghazni province in January 2004 that killed eight American soldiers.
The military said late Friday that a soldier was injured by a land mine explosion near Bagram. The soldier was inquiring in a village about an earlier rocket attack on the base but there was no evidence militants had laid the charge deliberately, the military said.
The soldier, who suffered injuries to his legs, was evacuated to a U.S. military hospital in Germany.
About 17,000 U.S. soldiers remain in Afghanistan training a new Afghan army and battling a stubborn Taliban-led insurgency which has revived since the end of winter.
Incidents reported Saturday included the killing of an Afghan official in the border province of Zabul, which police blamed on Taliban insurgents. Further north, Afghan officials said they had arrested a district mayor in eastern Laghman province for alleged links with rebels and handed him over to U.S. forces.
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