Friday 17 August 2012,

 Kabul, (BNA)

KABUL: A NATO Black Hawk helicopter came down in southern Afghanistan on Thursday, killing seven American soldiers and four Afghans, the military said.

The four Afghans included three members of the Afghan security forces and a civilian interpreter, NATO's US-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said.

"The cause of the crash is under investigation," it said, adding that the helicopter was a UH-60 Black Hawk. The statement gave no further details.

The ISAF statement did not use its normal phrasing for a simple helicopter crash, which includes the line that no enemy activity was reported in the area.

Helicopter crashes are fairly frequent in Afghanistan, where the 130,000-strong NATO mission relies heavily on air transport