KABUL, Aug 16: Seventeen Spanish troops with the Nato-led peacekeeping operation in Afghanistan were killed on Tuesday in a helicopter crash during an exercise near the western city of Herat.

A Spanish defence ministry spokesman said another helicopter was forced to make an emergency landing after the first chopper went down south of Spain’s base at Herat. Five troops from the second helicopter were injured.

Spanish Defence Minister Jose Bono said the second Cougar helicopter flying in the area had spotted a column of black smoke rising from a nearby valley and added that the crash could have been caused by an attack.

“It may have been an accident or it may have been an attack from the outside,” Mr Bono said at a news conference. “It has absolutely not been ruled out that it might have been an attack.”

Major Andrew Elmes, a spokesman for the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force, said ISAF believed the crash was an accident.—Reuters