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Spy plane crashes into French school in Kabul
| How do you say "Oops" in Pashto? |
An unmanned spy plane believed to be operated by a US security firm crashed into a school in the Afghan capital Kabul without causing any casualties, an eyewitness and sources told AFP Thursday. The unmanned 1.5 metre (yard) long drone smashed into a window at the French-funded Istiqlal high school close to President Hamid Karzai's palace, according to a senior official at the school. DynCorp, a private US security company that guards [Karzai], uses drones to survey the grounds around the palace, a source close to Karzai told AFP. "It crashed shortly after 1:00pm (0830 GMT) on a window of the centre which was broken and nobody was injured," said the director of the school's cultural centre Daniel Massat-Bourrat. Two heavily-armed Americans wearing capes in plain clothes jumped the wall of the palace into the school grounds and removed the wreckage, offering to pay for repairs, Massat-Bourrat said. "They presented themselves with a codename: planet," Massat-Bourrat said.
"L'eclair c'est bleu!"
"Ahah! Planet!"
"Cheeze!"
"Frommage!"
"What's all that mean?"
"Nothin'. But it entertains the kiddies." |
The drone did not belong to the US military, spokesman Major Mark McCann said. Three US military unmanned craft have crashed in Afghanistan this year, with the last coming down on November 24. DynCorp maintains a heavy presence in Kabul and trains Afghanistan's fledgling police force. In August, a bomb outside the company's office in the capital killed nine people including four of its employees. The Istiqlal school, which has 5,600 pupils, is jointly financed by the Afghan ministry of education and France. Its alumni include Ahmad Shah Masood, the resistance hero killed by suspected Taliban in September 2001.
Posted by: Seafarious 2004-12-02 |
