KABUL, 6 February 2005 — The wreckage of a missing Afghan jet was found yesterday in mountains east of the capital Kabul with all 104 people on board feared dead, an Interior Ministry spokesman said.

“So far we don’t think there are any survivors,” Interior Ministry spokesman Lutfullah Mashal said. “The plane is completely destroyed.”

The wreckage was found in mountains 20 kilometers east of Kabul at around 0930 GMT during a joint search operation by Afghan police, army and peacekeeping troops from the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), he said.

The area has been blanketed by heavy snow this week and Afghan officials said bad weather was preventing search teams from reaching the wreckage on the ground to check for any possible survivors.

The private Kam Air Boeing 737 went missing on Thursday during a domestic flight from the western city of Herat to Kabul.

ISAF, the NATO-lead peacekeeping force operating in Afghanistan, said it had found the wreckage with the help of a specialized mountain rescue team.

“We have found it...at an altitude of 3,000 meters (9,840 feet),” ISAF spokesman Lt. Col. Patrick Poulain said.

There were 23 confirmed foreign nationals aboard the aircraft, including six Americans, one Iranian, three Italians, nine Turks and four Russian crew members, official sources from the countries or companies said.

“Apache helicopters from ISAF spotted the wreckage and a team of mountain rescue specialists is on site,” Poulain added.

He would not comment on the fate of the passengers, saying it was too early to know.

Defense Ministry spokesman Gen. Zahir Azimi, who flew over the crash site, said bad weather was preventing the search for crash victims and the operation would resume today.

“After the crash site was spotted, I flew in a helicopter with some ISAF helicopters down to the site, but since the cloud was too low on the crash site we could not land and even we could not see the spot, we returned and will resume the search operation tomorrow,” he told AFP.

“I can only say that we have spotted the crash site but I cannot talk about the fate of passengers.”

Kam Air owner Zmarai Kamgar confirmed the wreckage of the plane had been found but was also unable to elaborate on the fate of the passengers.

“The (wreckage of) the Kam Air plane which crashed on Thursday has been found. I am on my way to the site but cannot talk about the fate of the passengers, it is premature to say anything about them,” he said earlier.

Kabul is surrounded by mountains and Afghanistan’s rugged landscape, 40 percent of which is 1,800 meters (5,900 feet) or more above sea level, presents a challenge to pilots.

Earlier yesterday ISAF forces joined by hundreds of Afghan soldiers had resumed combing the mountains east of Kabul amid bad weather.

ISAF had mobilized two platoons of troops to hunt for the plane in the region southeast of the capital.