A helicopter which crashed killing 30 US troops in Afghanistan was shot down after the Taliban laid a trap to lure US forces into the area, an Afghan government official said on Monday.

“Now it’s confirmed that the helicopter was shot down and it was a trap that was set by a Taliban commander,” said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The official said the commander lured US forces to the scene by telling them there was a Taliban meeting taking place there.

The official said that President Hamid Karzai’s US-backed government “thinks this was a retaliation attack for the killing of Osama bin Laden.”

The Taliban did not make such an assertion when they claimed responsibility for the attack. . .