U.S. Searches for Troops In NE Afghan Mountains

Officials Say Team's Fate Still Unknown

KABUL, Afghanistan, July 1 -- U.S. forces continued a massive hunt Friday for a missing military team in the mountains of northeastern Afghanistan, three days after a Special Operations helicopter bringing troops to rescue the men crashed amid enemy fire, killing all 16 service members aboard.

A man claiming to speak for the Taliban militia called news organizations Friday to say that Taliban fighters had captured one of the men and killed seven others. But U.S. military officials said there was no evidence to support the claim. The missing team was made up of fewer than 10 soldiers, one officer in Washington said.

"All we have to date is that our guys are missing," said Lt. Col. Jerry O'Hara, a U.S. military spokesman here. "We don't have any positive proof that shows us they were injured, they were captured, or they are just in a hiding spot, waiting for our forces."

The incident in Konar province began Wednesday, when a small team of Special Operations forces were hiking through the region as part of Operation Red Wing, a mission against al Qaeda fighters, according to the military officer in Washington. The officer said none of the team members had been found, nor was it known whether any had been killed or captured.

"They could be hiding under a rock, waiting," the officer said. "There's an ongoing operation searching for them."

According to O'Hara, U.S. commanders last heard from the team on Tuesday afternoon after it started taking fire. The downed Chinook helicopter, a Special Operations aircraft, was one of at least two sent to extract the team, O'Hara said.

The Chinook appeared to have been hit by a rocket-propelled grenade as it approached its intended landing site, causing it to smash into a mountainside, Lt. Gen. James T. Conway, director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters Thursday.

He said the troops on board -- eight members of a Navy SEAL team and eight Army airmen -- appeared to have died in the crash. On Thursday, U.S. forces were finally able to reach the site and recover the bodies, but the ground team was not found in the area.

O'Hara said "all available assets" were being used to find the men, but that the search had been hampered by the steep, forested terrain and the possibility that "at any turn the search can turn into a fire fight if we encounter enemy forces."

Military officials said it was unclear who had fired on the helicopter. In addition to al Qaeda fighters, insurgents linked to the Taliban militia and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a fugitive former Afghan official, are also reportedly operating in the area.

The incident came as U.S. and Afghan forces face growing violence from insurgent groups that appear to be numerous, well-equipped and intent on undermining Afghanistan's modicum of stability after two decades of civil strife, foreign military occupation and religious repression.

At the same time, an increase in street crime, gang violence, kidnappings of foreign aid workers, murders of Afghans who support the U.S.-backed government and continued high levels of drug crop cultivation and trafficking have added to a sense of insecurity in the country. Afghan officials have been struggling to rebuild their country since the Taliban militia was ousted by a U.S.-led military campaign at the end of 2001.