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G.I.'s Recover Bodies of 2 on Seal Team in Afghanistan
This is sad.There is confusion over accounting for all four. Two dead and two alive(one rescued and one in hands of Afghans) or two dead, one rescued, and one still missing.American forces have recovered the bodies of two members of a four-man Navy Seal reconnaissance team that was reported missing last week after coming under hostile fire in a mountainous region of eastern Afghanistan, a senior Defense Department official said Monday. The defense official, as well as other Pentagon and military officials in Afghanistan and Washington, declined to provide details of where and how the two bodies had been found, and declined to identify the men publicly until family members have been notified. News of the deaths, which were first reported by the British Broadcasting Corporation, came as there were conflicting reports about the location of one of the other members of the Special Operations team. The governor of Kunar Province, where the team was when it was reported missing, said Monday that a Seal commando was reported to be alive and in the hands of Afghan villagers. But American officials in Washington said the governor's remarks, which gave rise to hopes that a second member of the team had been found alive, actually referred to the one team member who was rescued Saturday and flown to safety on Sunday, still leaving one member unaccounted for. "What we have here is a time lag in the reporting," a senior defense official said. The governor, Asadullah Wafa, cautioned that he was still trying to verify the report but indicated that he believed it was separate from the report of the first Seal commando who was rescued. According to the new report, he said that the sailor was being cared for by villagers, and that Afghan soldiers and policemen were trying to reach the remote village to rescue him. "There is a report; we don't know if it is true yet," he said. Let's hope and pray that the governor is right about the fourth Seal being alive and accounted for. Our prayers are with all the men in this operation and their families.More at link Posted by: GK 2005-07-05 |
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