HORRIBLE NEWS:

Spain confirmed the country's first troop fatalities in Afghanistan, saying that 17 troops died on Tuesday in what appeared to be an accidental helicopter crash, a spokesman in the Spanish prime minister's office told CNN.

The troops were serving under NATO command as part of a Spanish contingent of about 800 peacekeeping troops there. The spokesman said "a helicopter crashed" although he had no immediate further information on the circumstances of the accident.

The location of the crash is near the western Afghan city of Herat.

He said there was no indication that the helicopter was brought down by hostile fire, a major concern since fighting between U.S. and Afghan forces and Taliban militants has been raging during the runup to the Sept, 18 Afghan parliamentary elections.

But Herat is part of a region closer to Iran, an area that has not been plagued by the kind of fighting that has been raging along Afghanistan's eastern border.

Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, on vacation, has been informed and was in contact with Spain's Defense Ministry, the spokesman said.

Spanish Defense Minister Jose Bono was expected to make a statement at 2 p.m. (8 a.m. ET).

A second helicopter, flying near the one that crashed, made an emergency landing and there were injuries on that craft, Spanish Defense Ministry spokesmen told CNN partner station CNN+.

No matter what one thinks about Zapatero's administration policies, what these guys are doing in Afghanistan (just as what they would have done in Iraq if they hadn't been irresponsibly pulled out from there) is an outstanding job.

May these seventeen heroes rest in peace. And may their deaths be spared of the disgusting, vomit-inducing politicization that happened with their coleagues who died in the Yak-42 accident.

Will be updating this entry with any new information regarding the cause of the accident.

UPDATE. Reuters has more. Defense minister Bono has appeared in a press conference and said that, while the initial impression was that it had been an accident, the fact that the crash occured in what was a mountain area, yes, but specifically in a plain in the middle of it, doesn't allow to rule out an outside attack. They've shown the first picture and it's true; the crashed helo is in the middle of a big plain. I guess we'll know more as soon as the soldiers flying on helicopter flying with the one that crashed tell what happened (they did an emergency landing themselves and this is why some of the occupants are slightly hurt; apparently when they saw the other one crashing they thought it was an attack and decided to land immediately. I'm not sure if this makes military sense; a layman like would think that landing in a place where an attack comes from is probably not a good idea. On the other hand, they probably didn't want to leave the guys in the crashed helicopter just like that.)

UPDATE II. Zapatero has read a statement and taken no questions from reporters. It's been a quite bland, topical statement, and wanting to be so empathic and thoughtful he has -if I'm not wrong, but it made me jump my chair so I don't think I am; anyway, I'll check with the transcript when it's available- slipped a real howler. Zapatero has said that "the 17 [dead] soldiers must know that they have the gratitude of all right-thinking people". Not their loved ones, not their friends, not their souls. Themselves. Sheesh. And they call Bush inarticulate. Maybe it's time for Slate to start a "Zapaterisms" section; I can send quite a few examples and we'll all laugh together and so.

UPDATE III. I just watched the statement in the nightly news on TV and I had it wrong: Zapatero was talking about the families and friends of the dead soldiers. My bad.

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