KABUL, Afghanistan — Seven American soldiers and three Afghan soldiers and an interpreter were killed after daybreak on Thursday when their Black Hawk helicopter crashed in Kandahar Province in southern Afghanistan, the American-led military command here said.

A spokesman for the Taliban said the group had shot down the helicopter, but American officials said there was no indication yet that enemy fire was the cause. The helicopter crashed in a Taliban-controlled area in the northern part of Kandahar Province known as Shah Wali Kot around 10 a.m. on Thursday, an official at the Kandahar provincial governor’s office said.

American military officials declined to identify the type of unit to which the soldiers killed in the crash on Thursday had been assigned. However, a statement issued by the NATO command said three of them were part of United States Forces-Afghanistan, a command separate from the main NATO force that includes many Special Operations forces.

Maj. Martyn Crighton of the Army, a spokesman for the International Security Assistance Force Joint Command in Kabul, said it was not yet clear whether mechanical failure or Taliban fire was responsible.