Soldier still missing after US helicopter shot down

US forces desperately scoured rugged Afghan mountains today for a small team of soldiers missing after fierce fighting that included the shooting down of a special forces helicopter with 16 troops aboard earlier this week, US officials said.

A purported Taliban spokesman claimed to have captured one of the soldiers.

The developments further worsen the already stinging blow the US military suffered from the deaths of the 16 on the MH-47 Chinook chopper, and comes as it scrambles to deal with an insurgency that threatens three years of progress toward peace.

US military spokesman Lt Col Jerry O’Hara said US forces were using “every available asset” to search for the missing troops.

“Until we find our guys, they are still listed as unaccounted for and everything we got in that area is oriented on finding the missing men,” he said. He declined to identify the soldiers or say how many were missing.

The downed helicopter had gone into the mountains near the town of Asadabad, close to the Pakistani border, on Tuesday to “extract the soldiers,” O’Hara said. The team on the ground has been missing since the chopper was downed.

The Taliban claim to have kidnapped a soldier came from its purported spokesman, Mullah Latif Hakimi.

“One high-ranking American has been captured in fighting in the same area as the helicopter went down,” he said.

Reacting to the claim, O’Hara said: “We have no proof or evidence indicating anything other than the soldiers are missing.”

Hakimi, who also claimed that the insurgents shot down the helicopter, often calls news organisations to take responsibility for attacks, often with information that proves exaggerated or untrue. His exact tie to the Taliban leadership is not clear.

At the Pentagon in Washington, Lt Gen James Conway, director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the military did not yet have a full account of all ground troops involved in the operation, but he said no troops had been classified as officially missing.

Rescuers – struggling against stormy weather, insurgents and the rugged terrain – had recovered the remains of the 16 and were today trying to identify them, the military said.

Conway said it appears an unguided rocket-propelled grenade hit the aircraft. He called it “a pretty lucky shot against a helicopter.”

Only eight months ago, Afghan and US officials were hailing a relatively peaceful presidential election as a sign that the Taliban rebellion was finished.

But remnants of the former Taliban regime have stepped up attacks, and there are disturbing signs that foreign fighters – including some linked to al Qaida - might be making a new push to sow an Iraq-style insurgency.

Afghan officials say the fighters have used the porous border with Pakistan to enter the country, and officials have called on the Pakistani government do more to stop them.

The loss of the helicopter follows three months of unprecedented fighting that has killed about 477 suspected insurgents, 47 Afghan police and soldiers, 134 civilians, and 45 US troops, including the 16 killed in Tuesday’s crash.

The crash was the second of a Chinook helicopter in Afghanistan this year. On April 6, 15 US service members and three American civilians were killed when their aircraft went down in a sandstorm while returning to the main US base at Bagram.