US Soldiers Missing in Afghanistan

01/07/2005| IslamWeb

A small team of U.S. soldiers was still missing Friday in the same mountains in eastern Afghanistan where a special forces helicopter was shot down earlier this week, and U.S. forces are using "every available asset" to find them, a U.S. military spokesman said.

The MH-47 Chinook helicopter — with 16 people on board who all died in the crash — had gone into the mountains Tuesday to "extract the soldiers." The team on the ground has been missing since the chopper was downed, U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. Jerry O'Hara said.

A purported Taliban spokesman, Mullah Latif Hakimi, meanwhile, claimed the rebels had captured a U.S. soldier in the area, near the town of Asadabad, close to the Pakistani border.

"One high-ranking American has been captured in fighting in the same area as the helicopter went down," he told The Associated Press. "I won't give you any more details now."

The bodies of the 16 have been recovered and troops Friday were trying to identify the remains, the military said.

PHOTO CAPTION

A photo released by the US Army shows a US military CH-47 Chinook helicopter in Afghanistan. (AFP)