U.S. Continues Search For Missing Team In Afghanistan

A Chinook helicopter operating in Afghanistan in December 2004 (file photo) 4 July 2005 (RFE/RL) -- U.S. forces today are continuing a search for members of a small-special forces team that went missing last week in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan.

On 3 July, U.S. military officials said they had found one member of the team that had been conducting operations in Kunar Province. A U.S. helicopter sent to help the team was shot down in the area on 28 June, killing all 16 U.S. soldiers on board.

The U.S. military has declined to release details about the number of missing soldiers, or their mission.

In another development, a pro-Afghan government Islamic scholar, Mawlavi Mohammad Nabi Masah, a member of the Ulema Council of clerics, was shot on 3 July in a car in Kandahar and later died at a nearby U.S. military base.

(Reuters/AFP)