The helicopter crashed in eastern Afghanistan, killing a total of 31 U.S. troops and seven Afghan commandos, the country’s president said Saturday. An American official said it was apparently shot down, in the deadliest single incident for American forces in the decade-long war.

The Taliban claimed they downed the helicopter with rocket fire while it was taking part in a raid on a house where insurgents were gathered in the province of Wardak late Friday. It said wreckage of the craft was strewn at the scene.

NATO confirmed the overnight crash took place and that there “was enemy activity in the area.” But it said it was still investigating the cause and conducting a recovery operation at the site. It did not release details or casualty figures.

“We are in the process of accessing the facts,” said U.S. Air Force Capt. Justin Brockhoff, a NATO spokesman.

But a senior U.S. administration official in Washington said it was apparently shot down by insurgents. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the crash is still being investigated.

President Barack Obama mourned the deaths of the American troops, saying in a statement that the crash serves as a reminder of the “extraordinary sacrifices” being made by the U.S. military and its families. He said he also mourned “the Afghans who died alongside our troops.”

The death toll would surpass the worst single day loss of life for the U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan since the war began in 2001 — the June 28, 2005 downing of a military helicopter in eastern Kunar province. In that incident, 16 Navy SEALs and Army special operations troops were killed when their craft was shot down while on a mission to rescue four SEALs under attack by the Taliban. Three of the SEALs being rescued were also killed and the fourth wounded. It was the highest one-day death toll for the Navy Special Warfare personnel since World War II.

With its steep mountain ranges, providing shelter for militants armed with rocket-propelled grenade launchers, eastern Afghanistan is hazardous terrain for military aircraft. Large, slow-moving air transport carriers like the CH-47 Chinook are particularly vulnerable, often forced to ease their way through sheer valleys where insurgents can achieve more level lines of fire from mountainsides.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Saturday gave the first public word of the new crash, saying in a statement that “a NATO helicopter crashed last night in Wardak province” and that 31 American special operations troops were killed. He expressed his condolences to President Barack Obama.

The helicopter was a twin-rotor Chinook, said an official at NATO headquarters in Brussels. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said he was receiving his information from an Afghan officer in Kabul.

The crash took place in the Sayd Abad district of Wardak province, said a provincial government spokesman, Shahidullah Shahid. The volatile region borders the province of Kabul where the Afghan capital is located and is known for its strong Taliban presence.

Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said in a statement that Taliban fighters downed the helicopter during a “heavy raid” in Sayd Abad. He said NATO attacked a house in Sayd Abad where insurgent fighters were gathering Friday night. During the battle, the fighters shot down the helicopter, killing 31 Americans and seven Afghans, he said, adding that eight insurgents were killed in the fight.

There have been at least 17 coalition and Afghan aircraft crashes in Afghanistan this year.

Most of the crashes were attributed to pilot errors, weather conditions or mechanical failures. However, the coalition has confirmed that at least one CH-47F Chinook helicopter was hit by a rocket propelled grenade on July 25. Two coalition crew members were injured in that attack.

Meanwhile, in the southern Helmand province, an Afghan government official said Saturday that NATO troops attacked a house and inadvertently killed eight members of a family, including women and children.

NATO said that Taliban fighters fired rocket propelled grenades and small arms fire at coalition troops during a patrol Friday in the Nad Ali district.

“Coalition forces responded with small arms fire and as the incident continued, an air strike was employed against the insurgent position,” said Brockhoff. He added that NATO sent a delegation to meet with local leaders and investigate the incident.

Nad Ali district police chief Shadi Khan said civilians died in the bombardment but that it was unknown how many insurgents were killed.

Helmand, a Taliban stronghold, is the deadliest province in Afghanistan for international troops.

NATO has come under harsh criticism in the past for accidentally killing civilians during operations against suspected insurgents. However, civilian death tallies by the United Nations show the insurgency is responsible for most war casualties involving noncombatants.

In south Afghanistan, NATO said two coalition service member were killed, one on Friday and another on Saturday. The international alliance did not release further details.

With the casualties from the helicopter crash, the deaths bring to 365 the number of coalition troops killed this year in Afghanistan and 42 this month.

——

Associated Press writers Lolita C. Baldor and Mark S. Smith contribute to this report from Washington.

“I believe that the planned drawdown is an unnecessary risk,” McCain, a Republican from Arizona, who claimed that no military leader has spoken in favor of the timetable.

Lt. Gen. John R. Allen, a Marine general expected to carry out the president’s drawdown order, has said the schedule is a bit more aggressive than the military had anticipated. Allen has cautioned that successfully winding down the war will require new progress on a wide front, including more help from allies and less Afghan corruption.

McCain — during a stop at the Kabul headquarters of the foreign military contingent, called the International Security Assistance Force — said he’s concerned there may not be enough American troops for a move from southern Afghanistan to the east to “finish the job there.” There are currently about 90,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan among a total international force of more than 132,000.

NATO has deployed the bulk of its forces to Helmand and Kandahar, two southern provinces where Afghan Taliban influence is strong, but international terrorist groups are less influential.

McCain said the drawdown will deprive NATO “to a significant degree” as it attempts to pacify eastern Afghanistan next summer.

Graham, a Republican from South Carolina, cited gains in Afghan security force recruitment and capability and said he was optimistic that native forces would soon be ready to take over security. But Graham also worried Obama’s withdrawal plan may reduce U.S. troop strength in Afghanistan too quickly.

“Withdrawal is what the enemy hopes to hear,” said Graham. “Our goal is to make sure that the enemy doesn’t hear withdrawal and the Afghan people don’t hear withdrawal.”

Lieberman, an independent from Connecticut, said it was important to reassure Afghans that they will continue to receive help long after the 2014 deadline for the withdrawal of U.S. combat troops.

“We’re certainly going to be here in great numbers until the end of 2014 and I hope as a result of a strategic long-term partnership with Afghanistan that we will have a military presence here and cooperation here with our Afghan partners for a long time after that,” said Lieberman.

The senators were skeptical about Western efforts to reach a negotiated peace with the Taliban’s leadership and suggested that political compromises with the insurgents could betray the Afghan people.

“I don’t think there will be serious negotiations with the Taliban until they are convinced that they cannot succeed in the attaining their goals through the force of arms on the battlefield,” said McCain, who lost to Obama in the 2008 presidential race.

Lieberman said that the Taliban would not seriously consider peace until coalition and Afghan forces “basically beat down and wear down the Taliban fighters and they lose their will increasingly and the leadership is isolated.” Lieberman called the idea that Afghan President Hamid Karzai, NATO leaders and insurgent commanders could talk out their differences at a peace conference “a dream, a fantasy.”

The senators’ harshest observations were reserved for Pakistan, home of many of the insurgent groups NATO forces are currently fighting in Afghanistan.

“There’s growing anger, it’s not just impatience, in the Congress of the United States toward Pakistan,” said Lieberman. “We want to have a good relationship with them but we’re tired of seeing them be both our allies and our enemies and supporting our enemies at the same time. They’ve got to decide to be our allies and we’ll be good allies to them, or we won’t.”

Shortly before the senators’ news conference in Kabul, an improvised bomb exploded on the other end of the capital, wounding three Afghan policemen, the Afghan Interior Ministry said. Insurgents have focused many of their attacks on Afghan security forces to undermine their development and NATO’s plans to transfer security operations to Afghan control.

“My grandson was nine years old,” said Juma Gul, a 60-year-old village elder in the Sirkanay district in eastern Afghanistan. “He and three other children were herding our goats when a rocket came. All four were killed. We could not find most of their bodies.”

A loud crack sounded and rolled over the peaks. Gul swept his hand toward the mountain range rising toward Pakistan. “Still the rockets are landing here,” he said.

The shelling in Kunar province is taking place along one of the most strategically important fronts of the war — a haven for hardcore insurgent groups fighting in both Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Pakistan has been so stung by insurgents’ recent cross-border attacks, they launched an offensive that also highlights NATO’s struggles to pacify the area and the lack of cooperation between Afghanistan and Pakistan against their common foes.

NATO officials, in fact, say they were unaware of the extent of Pakistan’s artillery barrage across Afghanistan’s border until last week because Western troops have been pulled back from more remote outposts in Kunar.

Afghan government officials have accused Pakistan of launching more than 761 rockets over the border into Kunar province since May and causing the deaths of at least 40 people and injuring 51. Pakistan has denied hitting Afghanistan intentionally, but acknowledged its military has been targeting Islamic militants to halt cross-border raids and that some rockets may have strayed off course.

Last month, President Hamid Karzai complained about the shelling to the top NATO commander in Afghanistan, U.S. Gen. David Petraeus, U.S. Ambassador Karl Eikenberry and Pakistani President Asif Ali Zadari.

Since those meetings, however, the assaults appear to have intensified in Kunar, about 125 miles (205 kilometers) east of Kabul.

During a two-hour visit to three mountain villages, an Associated Press reporter witnessed at least 50 artillery strikes. One rocket struck a mountain slope about five miles outside of the provincial capital, Asadabad.

The bombings have reopened old wounds along the Durand Line, the disputed 19th century demarcation between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Both countries claim rugged Pashtun tribal areas on either side of the poorly marked border — which is now the sanctuary for some of the fiercest insurgent groups in Central Asia. The Afghan- and Pakistan-based wings of the Taliban, Hizb-i-Islami, and more international faction such as al-Qaida and Lashkar-e-Taiba also have bases there.

Coalition officials acknowledged that recent tensions along Kunar’s border has festered for weeks without an adequate response from the international alliance, in part because they consolidated troops from scattered valley and border outposts to centralized bases after coming under relentless attacks from militants.

The redeployment reflects a tactical shift from counterinsurgency operations — emphasizing development projects and regular contacts to win over local populations — to counterterrorism operations that emphasize killing militants.

Last week, U.S. forces launched an offensive in Watapoor district in northeastern Kunar province, said U.S. Army Lt. Col. Chad Carroll, a spokesman for the 1st Calvary Division at Regional Command East. Carroll said the objective of the operation was less to take strategic terrain than to target insurgents.

“It’s more about enemy locations than it is about a spot on the ground,” he said. U.S. soldiers have killed 80 to 100 militants in the district, Carroll said.

But Taliban fighters still manage to stage attacks on both sides of Kunar’s border, Afghan officials say.

“There are only finite resources, manpower,” said British Maj. Tim James, a NATO spokesman.

“The shelling has routinely gone on where we don’t have troops,” he said.

A study by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace published in June says “the reorganization of U.S. forces in Kunar and Nuristan has led to an insurgent advance.”

“The fact is, the force was too dispersed, and local opposition — the population was allied with the insurgents — led the American command to evacuate the most isolated valleys … as well as certain border outposts,” wrote Carnegie visiting scholar Gilles Dorronsoro.

The fighting then shifted to areas where U.S. forces evacuated and now “is intensifying throughout the rest of Kunar,” Dorronsoro added.

The situation along Kunar’s border suggests the kind of future challenges Afghanistan, Pakistan and NATO will face as U.S. forces leave according to President Barack Obama’s schedule for the withdrawal of combat troops by 2014, when security will transition to Afghan control.

During two days in Sirkanay district, Afghan Border Police were the most conspicuous forces on the roads, where they appeared to operate with a degree of autonomy from NATO. Only two other security units were seen: An armored NATO patrol and a newly established local police unit. Two new border police camps built next to NATO bases housed a well-maintained fleet of new Ford pick-up trucks and young policemen carrying AK-47s.

The border police’s movements, however, were severely limited by shelling from Pakistan and by Taliban hiding in mountain villages.

Gen. Aminullah Amerkhail, the eastern region commander of the Afghan Border Police, accused Pakistan of assisting the insurgents — using artillery to clear Afghan villages so Taliban fighters could use them as sanctuaries. Between 700 and 1,000 families have fled border areas in Kunar and neighboring Nangarhar province, Amerkhail said.

“The withdrawal of NATO forces has had a direct effect on insecurity,” said Amerkhail, who added that his forces were not strong enough to assault known Taliban positions. “I will not go to those villages without air support from the Americans.”

Amerkhail, who earned a reputation for interdicting heroin shipments when he was in charge of security at the Kabul International Airport, offered his resignation to the Afghan interior minister on Thursday to protest NATO’s and Pakistan’s response to the problems along the border.

Pakistani officials, too, have complained about NATO inaction in southeast Kunar.

Five times in June, militants based in Kunar and Nangarhar massed up to 300 fighters to stage cross-border attacks against Pakistani security checkpoints, killing 55 paramilitary soldiers and tribal police, Pakistani army officials said. Pakistani air and ground assaults drove the insurgents back.

Pakistani army spokesman Maj. Athar Abbas said that no rounds have been fired into Afghanistan intentionally, although it is possible that “a few” rounds may have accidentally fallen over the border. Abbas defended the assaults.

“There is no effort to act against these strongholds or sanctuaries,” he said. “Many terrorist leaders are gathered there, and there is no pressure on them to leave.”

Whatever Pakistan’s defensive rationale, Afghanistan views the border attacks as an infringement on its sovereignty.

“The Pakistani artillery attacks are just a continuation of various kinds interference by our neighbors during the last 10 years,” said Lutifullah Mashal, a spokesman for Afghanistan’s intelligence service. “These have included suicide attacks, roadside bomb attacks and sometimes, sending terrorists to hotels and hospitals and sometimes by firing at us directly.”

Afghan security officials have warned Pakistan that continued artillery fire into its territory will be met with a response that could include Afghan military action.

Three villages the AP visited along the Afghan side of the border — Khadikhail, Shingi Salehabad and Sabagai — were each separated by a 20-walk along undulating footpaths. A fourth village, Mullah Goray, was further away from the Pakistani border, but all four were close enough that interviews were punctuated by the sounds of detonations at various ranges. Some shelling was so close that both the launches and impacts were heard. Pakistani helicopters could also be seen over the mountains in what villagers said was Afghan territory.

“Here is shrapnel from Pakistan’s artillery and rockets, which killed our innocent villagers and children playing in front of their houses,” said Mohammad Hasan, 45, in Shingi Salehabad. A rocket exploded within earshot and he looked toward Pakistan. “Attacks are still going on. You can still hear the sound of heavy artillery. During the night we cannot go to sleep.”

A villager named Fazel, 18, said he and five relatives were all struck by flying metal.

“The rocket hit our house when we were at home,” he said. “Day and night our villages are under attack. In my village 25 people have been killed and wounded.”

His relatives fled with 60 other families, he said. He was trying to take care of the remaining animals but did not know how long he would be able to stay.

As the bombs continued falling, Fazel showed visitors his shrapnel scars.

——

Associated Press writers Sebastian Abbot in Islamabad and Anwarullah Khan in Khar, Pakistan, contributed to this report.

Wary of being blamed for civilian casualties, the Taliban denied it was behind the bombing. Violence has been on the rise since the Islamic movement launched its spring offensive and promised retaliation for the death of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.

“This attack was not done by our fighters,” Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.

Survivors of the blast and others who heard the explosion frantically dug through the rubble with shovels and bare hands. At least 35 bodies were pulled from the debris and 53 other people were wounded, provincial public health director Dr. Mohammad Zaref Nayebkhail said.

The victims — most women and children — included patients, visitors, and medical staffers.

“They were offering important services for the people. We had very good services and lots of patients. There were only 10 beds but lots of other services in that center. It’s why the casualties were so high,” he said.

Nayebkhail said an Afghan army helicopter was dispatched to the area to deliver medical supplies and to ferry survivors to other hospitals. He said the clinic had recently been expanded to meet the health needs of the far-flung district’s population.

The Taliban claims it does not target civilians, but the movement is fractured and Saturday’s attacks shared characteristics of recent violence.

Saturday’s attack was the deadliest since February, when three men shot to death 38 people at a Kabul Bank branch in Jalalabad. The Taliban claimed responsibility, saying the victims deserved their fates because some worked for the Western-backed Afghan government, which they perceive as illegitimate.

The Taliban also claimed responsibility for a bomb attack in February in the northern province of Kunduz which killed 31 people as they waited for government identification cards.

A recent U.N. report found that May was the deadliest month for civilians since it began keeping track in 2007, and it said insurgents were to blame for 82 percent of the 368 deaths recorded.

Late Friday, another blast — this one caused by a bicycle rigged with explosives — ripped through a bazaar in the Khanabad district of Kunduz province in northern Afghanistan, killing at least 10 people, including a police officer, and wounding 24, according to an Interior Ministry statement.

The bombings raised concerns about the readiness of Afghans to take over their own security as the U.S. and other NATO nations begin to withdraw forces. President Barack Obama’s announced Wednesday that he plans to withdraw 10,000 U.S. troops from Afghanistan by the end of the year. NATO officials insist the Afghan government will be prepared for full sovereignty by 2014.

The French government reported, meanwhile, that a French soldier was killed after coming under fire from insurgents while on a reconnaissance mission east of Kabul.

The death brings to 47 the number of NATO service members killed in June, and to more than 200 those killed this year, slightly fewer than last year’s six-month total.

As violence raged in the provinces, Kabul plunged deeper into a constitutional crisis.

Afghan lawmakers, upset over a controversial electoral investigation, passed a no-confidence resolution on Saturday against the nation’s most senior judicial officials, calling for five of them to be fired two days after doing the same for the attorney general.

It was unclear if the decision would actually lead to action against the judicial officials. President Hamid Karzai was in neighboring Iran attending a security conference.

Both votes were taken to protest a special investigative tribunal that invalidated the victories of 62 lawmakers because of alleged improper voting procedures and fraud. The tribunal was requested by the attorney general, endorsed by the supreme court and approved by Karzai.

Some parliament members characterize its findings as an unconstitutional power grab by Karzai and his appointees.

Two-term parliament member Fawza Kofi, not among those named in the tribunal’s report, supported the no-confidence votes.

“The tribunal didn’t deal with any criminal issues, rather it just invalidated the votes of the people,” she said.

She acknowledged the parliamentary vote was largely symbolic, since the body has no power to remove the judges or attorney general. Abdul Malik Kamawi, chief executive of the supreme court, said the votes were unconstitutional and would be ignored.

Deputy Attorney General Rahmatullah Nazery also dismissed the no-confidence votes as illegitimate, since some of the lawmakers had been discredited by the special tribunal. Nazery said his office will refer the tribunal’s findings to the Independent Election Commission of Afghanistan, which will have the final word on whether to replace the lawmakers.