The Taliban have offered to exchange the body of a US Navy member they said was killed in an ambush two days ago in exchange for insurgent prisoners, an Afghan official said today.

Two US Navy service members disappeared in a dangerous area of eastern Afghanistan, prompting a massive search and appeals for their safe return, Nato and Afghan officials said today.

BOMB blasts killed four US marines in southern Afghanistan, where thousands of American troops have deployed in recent weeks as part of an offensive in the country’s dangerous drug-producing region, an official said yesterday.