KABUL, 10 July 2005 — Taleban militants in Afghanistan yesterday claimed to have beheaded a US special forces soldier they had held hostage since last week, but the US military said there was no proof the soldier had been killed. Taleban spokesman Mulla Abdul Latif Hakimi told AFP the soldier was killed yesterday and his body was left on a mountainside in the northeastern province of Kunar.
An American Navy SEAL has been missing in Kunar after the rescue attempt of a four-man team ended in the downing of a US military helicopter on June 28, killing 16 people. One soldier was rescued but the other two are dead. “This morning at 11:00 a.m. (0630 GMT) in Shagal district in Kunar province, the Taleban killed the American soldier and cut his head off,” Hakimi told AFP.
“We left the body on a mountainside in the area ... so the Afghan or US soldiers there can find it,” the spokesman said, declining to give any details about the victim. “We cannot give more information, after the US finds the body and announces it that will be the proof of our claim,” he said.
The report could not be verified from independent sources and Hakimi has previously made inflated or untrue claims about clashes in Afghanistan between the Taleban and coalition forces.
A US military spokesman here said there was no proof that the soldier was dead and that the massive search for him was continuing. “Our service member is still missing, and search operations are ongoing. We have no proof that what the Taleban claim has happened,” spokesman Lt. Col. Jerry O’Hara said.
The US has said more than 300 US soldiers backed by military aircraft were searching the wooded mountains to locate the missing commando. It has disputed previous claims that he was being held by the Taleban.
The four Navy SEALs were on a reconnaissance mission when they came under attack by a large force of militants. After calling for support, the Chinook helicopter was shot down in the coalition’s biggest single loss of life since toppling the fundamentalist Taleban regime in late 2001.
Taleban insurgents have stepped up attacks on Afghan and US-led forces in the run-up to the war-torn country’s first post-conflict parliamentary polls in September. Afghan Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak said yesterday that a resurgent Al-Qaeda terror network had teamed up with Taleban militants to unleash attacks which have killed about 600 people this year.
He said Al-Qaeda was regrouping and using unspecified “new tactics” in the attacks. In the latest incidents, two Afghan policemen were wounded and 15 others went missing after suspected Taleban insurgents ambushed their convoy Saturday in southern Afghan province of Helmand, officials said. Hakimi said the Taleban had carried out the attack in Helmand’s Dishu district and said the group had killed six policemen and taken seven others hostage.
The US military yesterday released another batch of 76 Afghan prisoners as part of ongoing efforts to promote national reconciliation, officials said. “Today 76 prisoners who come from 16 different Afghan provinces were released,” Sediq Wira, spokesman for the National Reconciliation Commission, told reporters in Kabul. The detainees were freed from the US detention center at the Bagram Air Base north of Kabul.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai last year offered an olive branch to rank-and-file Taleban fighters and said all but a hardcore of 150 militants wanted for human rights violations would be able to join the political process.
“This is the third time the commission has secured the release of Afghan prisoners from Bagram,” Wira said. “To be free, you need to make a commitment to your government and to your God to serve your country and people from now on,” said Mujaddadi.
More than 50 prisoners were freed by the commission in June and in May another 85 were released from the same detention center.
