A helicopter has crashed while escorting the Pakistani President on a visit to Kashmir today, killing two of his bodyguards and injuring his chief spokesman.

General Pervez Musharraf routinely travels with a number of helicopters as decoys to thwart assassination attempts, and was not aboard the stricken aircraft, which was carrying a dozen people when it made a crash landing in the mountainous region.

Witnesses said that it was trailing smoke, prompting suspicions that Islamist rebels had made another attempt on his life - a theory that was swiftly denied by the authorities. An official inquiry has been announced.

“(The helicopter) took off after President Musharraf left,” said Major-General Waheed Arshad, an army spokesman.

“The president is safe and sound. He has reached his destination.

“The engine backed up and because of that it immediately went down. The pilot made a crash landing. Once he did that the rear portion of the helicopter caught fire.”

Witnesses reported however hearing a bang while the helicopter was still airborne, and watching the pilot nursing his craft over a village at low altitude, trailing smoke, before coming down in a field.

A key ally of the West, General Musharraf has survived at least three assassination attempts by al-Qaeda linked militants. The most recent was last July, when assassins tried to shoot down his aeroplane after it took off from the military airfield at Rawalpindi. The plane was well out of range.

He always flies in a convoy, and it is deliberately left ambiguous as to whether he will be in the lead helicopter or one of those following.

He was visiting the disputed region of Kashmir today to mark the second anniversary of a catastrophic earthquake which left thousands of people dead.

The president’s spokesman, retired Major-General Rashid Qureshi, was among eight people injured in the helicopter crash, said Major-General Arshad. The four killed included a brigadier, two commandos from the President's security detail, and a cameraman from state-run television.

Major-General Arshad said that there would be an inquiry, but he doubted whether the helicopter had been sabotaged or attacked, as it would have been more likely to have exploded in the air.

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