A senior military commander was shot in the thigh on Wednesday when his helicopter came under fire near Swat valley. Swat General Officer Commanding Major General Javed Iqbal was airborne when gunfire from the ground hit his helicopter in the mountainous village of Nusrat Darra in Upper Dir.
Security officials had initially said the helicopter was hit in Swat. Upper Dir borders Swat, where the military waged a major offensive to put down a Taliban insurgency in 2009. Officials said the general was taking an aerial view of troop deployment. “The helicopter is safe. The commander was slightly injured. There was no loss of life,” a senior security official told AFP.
Another senior security official in Swat said two bullets hit the helicopter but that it landed safely. A third security official told AFP that a bullet hit the general’s right thigh and that was taken to a military hospital in Rawalpindi. There was no claim of responsibility for Wednesday’s incident.