Musharraf escort 'copter crashes

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A helicopter escorting Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has crashed killing four soldiers, the army says.

It said that Gen Musharraf was travelling in another helicopter on the visit to Pakistani-administered Kashmir and was unhurt.

But the president's spokesman, Rashid Qureshi, was among eight people hurt.

The delegation was going to the area to commemorate the second anniversary of an earthquake in the region which killed around 73,000 people.

Assassination attempts

"It was a technical fault, that's why it went down," army spokesman Maj Gen Waheed Arshad said. He denied that a militant attack was responsible.

"It took off after President Musharraf left," Arshad said. "The president is safe and sound. He has reached his destination."

President Musharraf, who won in presidential elections on Saturday, has survived at least three assassination attempts.

The most recent was in July, when unknown assailants tried to shoot down his plane after it took off from the military airfield at Rawalpindi. But it was well out of range.

A villager at the site of the crash told the Reuters news agency that he saw the helicopter trailing smoke as it flew low over a valley 18km south of Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistani-administered Kashmir.

"I was sitting in the courtyard of my house when I saw the helicopter flying overhead. Its noise was disturbed and smoke was coming from it," Khateeb Gardezi told the Reuters news agency.

"It was a great effort by the pilot because it was flying low over the houses. The pilot took it to a field.

"I saw General Rashid Qureshi and several other soldiers jumping from a height of 10-11 feet.

"It crashed with a deafening bang. I and another villager tried to help soldiers. General Qureshi was slightly wounded."

Television footage of the accident site showed hundreds of local people helping the injured, and dousing the smoking wreckage of the helicopter with water from a nearby river.

Several helicopters involved in supplying aid to victims of the quake have crashed in the Kashmir area over the last two years.