The general, Fazaludin Sayar, one of four regional commanders, was in charge of the entire west of the country.

His helicopter, an Mi-17, hit bad weather in the morning and went down in the Adraskan District of Herat Province, the Defense Ministry said. All 12 others aboard also were killed, it said. The helicopter had been headed to a neighboring province, Farah.

All of the bodies were brought to Herat, the provincial capital, said Rauf Ahmadi, a police spokesman.

In a telephone call to a reporter in southern Afghanistan, a Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousuf Ahmadi, asserted that militants had shot down the helicopter.

But a Defense Ministry spokesman, General Mohammad Zahir Azimi denied the report, saying the area of the crash had no insurgent activity.

The helicopter was flying low because of bad weather when it hit a mountain, he said.

After years of neglect, the Afghan Army’s aging helicopters are in bad shape. Forbidding mountainous terrain, lack of roads coupled with insurgent attacks on ground convoys have prompted the local and international authorities to rely heavily on the use of helicopters and other aircraft for movement.

In the deaths of the two British soldiers, the British Defense Ministry said they were killed during an operation against insurgents near Geresh in Helmand Province.

Southern Afghanistan is the center of the Taliban-led insurgency, where thousands of additional troops from the United States are expected to join the fight this

The nuclear reactor aboard the submarine was operating normally and radiation levels were normal, navy spokesman Capt. Igor Dygalo said.

The accident occurred when a fire-extinguishing system went into operation in error aboard the submarine, Dygalo said. He said the dead included sailors and shipbuilders.

The submarine was heading back to shore on its own power, and 21 people injured in the accident were evacuated to a ship that was escorting the sub.

Russia’s navy has been plagued by deadly accidents, including the explosions that sank the nuclear-powered submarine Kursk in 2000, killing all 118 seamen aboard.

Sunday’s accident came as the Kremlin seeks to restore Russia’s naval reputation. A naval squadron is headed to Venezuela for joint exercises this month in a show of force near U.S. shores.

CNN.com