KABUL, Afghanistan — Warplanes pounded a suspected Taliban compound in the Afghan mountains near where an elite U.S. military team disappeared last week, and violence elsewhere left 38 rebels and Afghan security forces dead as fighting rose ahead of fall elections.
A transport plane flew home the bodies of 16 U.S. troops — eight Navy SEALs and eight other troops — killed when their helicopter was shot down while trying to rescue the missing team, U.S. officials said yesterday.
It was not clear if there were any casualties in the air strike late Friday in mountains near Asadabad town in Kunar province, close to the Pakistani border. U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. Jerry O’Hara said a “battle damage assessment is ongoing.”
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“We conducted an air strike on a target we deemed we had to hit immediately. The target was an enemy compound in Kunar province,” he said. “The bombing was done using precision guided munitions. The target objective was intelligence driven.”
Col. O’Hara declined to say whether the air strike was directly related to the missing military team, which was last heard from in the same area Tuesday.
A purported Taliban spokesman, Mullah Latif Hakimi, claimed Friday that militants had captured one of the men and said he was a “high-ranking American” caught in the same area as where the helicopter went down. He reiterated the claim yesterday in a phone call with the Associated Press.
“The soldier is being held in Kunar. Taliban leaders will decide what to do with him,” Mr. Hakimi said. “He is being kept in a home. His health is all right.”
When asked to provide evidence that the soldier was in captivity, he said, “Tomorrow we will give proof.”
Mr. Hakimi, who also claimed insurgents shot down the helicopter, often calls news organizations to take responsibility for attacks, and the information frequently proves exaggerated or untrue. His exact tie to the Taliban leadership is not clear.
Col. O’Hara said the downed Chinook helicopter had been trying to extract the soldiers when it went into the mountains.
“All our hopes are that we find our missing service members. On top of those hopes are actions on the ground looking for them,” Col. O’Hara said. “It’s a very demanding area: very mountainous, very wooded and the likelihood of enemy contact is probable.”
The bodies of 16 soldiers killed in the helicopter crash were loaded in flag-draped caskets onto a C-17 transport plane during a memorial ceremony Friday night and flown to Dover, Del., Col. O’Hara said.
The loss of the 16 was the deadliest single blow to American forces who ousted the Taliban in 2001 and are now fighting the escalating insurgency.
In three months of unprecedented fighting, about 502 suspected insurgents, 57 Afghan police and soldiers, 45 Americans and 134 civilians have been killed. Only eight months ago, Afghan and U.S. officials were hailing a relatively peaceful presidential election as a sign that the Taliban rebellion was finished.
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