AP Reporter Among 15 Dead in Afghan Helicopter Crash

A military helicopter crashed Friday in northern Afghanistan and killed all 15 people on board, including Associated Press reporter Sharon Herbaugh, aid workers said.

Herbaugh, 39, was chief of the AP bureau in Islamabad, Pakistan, and had for more than four years covered the Afghan civil war and its aftermath.

Also killed in the crash was Natasha Singh, 25, of Oakland, Calif., a free-lance journalist based in New Delhi, the workers said.

John Lane, director of HALO Trust, a British-based charity that located the helicopter and recovered the bodies, said the helicopter crashed outside the mountain town of Pol-e-Khomri, 100 miles north of Kabul. It was on a flight to Yaram, about 30 miles east of Pol-e-Khomri, in Baghlan province.

Afghan sources said there were no reports of fighting in Baghlan province at the time of the crash. Most of the recent fighting in Afghanistan, ravaged by 14 years of civil war, has been confined to Kabul.

Herbaugh, who was born in Lamar, Colo., was posted to New Delhi in 1988. She became chief of bureau in Islamabad in February, 1990. She is survived by her parents, Howard and Dorothy Herbaugh; a 13-year-old daughter, Tracee, and a brother, Marlin.