Nato troops are facing rising violence in western Afghanistan Two US soldiers missing in western Afghanistan after failing to return from a routine resupply mission are thought to have drowned, officials say. Afghan officials say the men died two days ago in what appears to have been an accident. They died trying to recover supplies dropped by Nato aircraft which had fallen into a river, police said. A Taliban spokesman told Reuters news agency that they recovered the bodies in Badghis province. Provincial police chief Abdul Jabar said that the two servicemen were Americans who drowned after arriving in the area during a gun battle on Wednesday. Police said that the incident happened after Nato aircraft "dropped some logistical packages for a Nato base in [Badghis] province and a number of these packages went into the river nearby". "Two NATO soldiers went to take these packages from the river and drowned," Badghis deputy police chief Abdul Jabar, told the AFP news agency. In a statement released earlier on Friday, Nato did not give the soldiers' nationalities or say which province they had been in when they went missing Military officials said the families of the two soldiers had been informed. Rising violence Nato added that three of its troops were killed in two separate roadside bomb attacks on Thursday. Two of the soldiers were American, but the nationality of the third was not given. "The families of these service members have been notified about their loved ones' status and we will continue to keep them informed as information becomes available," a Nato spokeswoman said. Soldiers from more than 40 countries are taking part in Nato's force of nearly 110,000 troops in Afghanistan, two-thirds of them from the US. The biggest contingents operating in the west of the country are from the United States and Italy. Western Afghanistan has recently seen a rise in violence, with Taliban insurgents planting roadside bombs to maximise fatalities. This year more than 400 troops have been killed, most of them Americans. US President Barack Obama is currently considering a request from the military to increase troop numbers by up to 40,000, a decision that is not likely to be made imminently. The senior Nato commander in Afghanistan, Gen Stanley McChrystal, has warned that without an increase on the ground, the war could be lost.
Bookmark with: Delicious
Digg
reddit
Facebook
StumbleUpon What are these? E-mail this to a friend Printable version
The NATO-led force in Afghanistan issued a statement on Friday saying that that two of its troops went missing on Wednesday while on a routine supply mission.

The statement said a search operation is under way, but did not give many details. A NATO press officer said that "We continue exhaustive search and rescue operations to locate our missing service members. We are doing everything we can to find them."

Local police said that the soldiers were likely swept away by a river in Badghis, a western province, while they were trying to get to an airdropped food parcel that had fallen into the river. Officials said it was not likely that they were taken captive.

"The families of these service members have been notified about their loved ones' status and we will continue to keep them informed as information becomes available," a press officer said.