We begin with the breaking news. The deadliest single incident for Americans in Afghanistan since the summer of last year, a Black Hawk helicopter down, six US members, the NATO-led International security assistance force are dead. It happened today in southern Afghanistan. Even though we don’t yet have a full picture of what happened exactly, it's beginning to come to focus. Barbara Starr is working her sources at the Pentagon and joins us now. What are you learning, Barbara?  

 

Good evening, Anderson. At this hour, military investigators are urgently trying to figure out exactly what did happen here. The reports are that the helicopter, the Black Hawk, went down due to the mechanical failure, but once it hit the ground, were any of those six military members still alive? They are looking at the report that the helicopter once crashed came under mortar fire from Taliban forces in the immediate vicinity. So what they need to determine now, did the six members die in the crash or is it possible , possible that they were alive when they hit ground and that there wasn’t mortar attack and they perished in that. Investigators are talking to members of another helicopter that was flying in the immediate vicinity. They are trying to see what they can learn. We are told from one, the one survivor of the crash for U,, 6 U.S military families, terrible news on this holiday season. But this has been a big issue up and down the Pentagon hallways all day, Anderson, constant meetings about what did happen. And we know the Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel is also looking for some answers.

 

And the Taliban is claiming responsibility for the attack? 

They have claimed, interestingly enough, that they shot down a US aircraft today. These are the kind of claims they often make, most of the time, obviously not true, propaganda. But this is also raising the question clearly. Was this claim that they shot it down related to the report that it came under a mortar attack. 

 

And this comes, I mean, at a backdrop of the Afghan President Hamid Karzai refusing to sign an agreement with the White House over long-term troops in Afghanistan.

 

That's right. There are now 42,000 US troops in Afghanistan. They want to get this agreement for a number of troops probably about 10,000 to remain after the end of 2014. The job of the US troops will be to help train and assist the Afghan forces and do the very dangerous work of continuing to go after terrorist targets in Afghanistan.  He hasn’t signed the agreement and US is getting increasingly frustrated with him, given especially the price the US troops are paying. 

 

Yeah, all right. Barbara, appreciate the update. Thank you.