KABUL, Afghanistan — One of two U.S. sailors missing in Afghanistan since last week - a 30-yearold father of two - has been confirmed dead and his body recovered, a NATO spokesman said Tuesday.
The search continues for the other missing sailor, said Lt. Col. Todd Breasseale, a spokesman for NATO and U.S. forces in Afghanistan.
The two Navy personnel disappeared Friday in the eastern province of Logar after an armored sport utility vehicle was seen driving into a Taliban-held area. The Taliban have said they killed one of the two men in a firefight, captured the other and are holding him in a “safe place” where he will not be found.
In a statement, the NATO led command said the body was recovered Sunday after an extensive search and that the coalition “holds the captors accountable for the safety and proper treatment of our missing service member.”
NATO officials were unable to say what the two service members were doing in such a dangerous part of eastern Afghanistan.
The sailors were instructors at a counterinsurgency school for Afghan security forces, according to senior military officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case. The school was headquartered in Kabul and had classrooms outside the capital, but they were never assigned anywhere near where the body of the sailor was recovered, the officials said.
The Pentagon identified the dead sailor as Petty Officer 2nd Class Justin McNeley, 30, of Wheatridge, Colo., and the missing sailor as Petty Officer 3rd Class Jarod Newlove, 25, of Renton, Wash. The Pentagon listed Newlove’s whereabouts as unknown and is not confirming he was captured.
Jim Kerr, a Colorado legislator from the Denver suburb of Littleton, said McNeley was his wife’s nephew. McNeley was from Colorado but moved to Kingman, Ariz., in 2004, three years after he joined the U.S. Navy. His mother lives in Kingman and his father is a fire official in Encinitas, Calif.
Kerr told The Denver Post that McNeley, a noncommissioned officer and father of two sons, was due to return to the U.S. in August.
The only other American service member in Taliban captivity is Spc. Bowe Bergdahl of Hailey, Idaho, who disappeared June 30, 2009, in Paktika province, also in eastern Afghanistan. That area is heavily infiltrated by the Haqqani network, which has deep links to al-Qaida.
Bergdahl has since been shown in Taliban videos online.
New York Times reporter David Rohde was also kidnapped in Logar province while trying to meet with a Taliban commander. He and an Afghan colleague escaped in June 2009 after seven months in captivity, most of it spent in Taliban sanctuaries in Pakistan.
Separately in Afghanistan, Britain’s Ministry of Defense said Tuesday that a British soldier, who was serving with a task force working to counter homemade bombs, died Monday in a blast in the Sangin district of Helmand province in what may have been a case of “friendly fire.”
The ministry said a smoke screen was requested to allow the soldiers to work safely, and “it is believed that one of the smoke shells may have fallen short of its intended target.”
In neighboring Paktia province, a joint force carried out multiple precision strikes against a senior commander of the al-Qaida-linked Haqqani network. NATO said it had not yet confirmed the death of the commander, who controls fighter camps in the area and is in regular contact with top Haqqani leadership across the border in Pakistan.
Meanwhile, a former Pakistani spy kidnapped by militants four months ago in northwestern Pakistan threatened in a video to expose the government’s “weaknesses” unless it frees prisoners to secure his release as demanded by his captors.
Sultan Amir Tarar, also known as Col. Imam, did not provide further details in the video obtained by The Associated Press on Tuesday. But he likely possesses significant knowledge about his former employer, the country’s most powerful spy agency, and its overseer, the military.
Imam said he was being held by Lashkar-e-Jhangvi al-Alami, believed to be an offshoot of an anti-Shiite Muslim militant group that has increasingly set its sights on the government. A different group calling itself the Asian Tigers claimed to be holding the men soon after they were abducted in late March.
Lashkar-e-Jhangvi al-Alami has demanded that Pakistan release nearly 160 militants held in prison, including several suspected suicide bombers and men facing trial in the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, said intelligence officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.
Information for this article was contributed from Denver by Judith Kohler, from Dera Ismail Khan, Pakistan, by Ishtiaq Mahsud and from Islamabad by Munir Ahmed of The Associated Press.
Front Section, Pages 9 on 07/28/2010