Missing U.S. Commando Rescued

Search Continues For Three Troops Still Missing In Afghanistan

(CBS/AP)  U.S. forces have been hit hard in Afghanistan recently, losing 45 service members in the past three months. Also Sunday, U.S. and Afghan forces killed five suspected Taliban rebels in fighting in the country's south, while insurgent gunmen on motorbikes shot and killed a senior pro-government cleric, officials said.

The five were killed in mountains east of Kandahar, the main city in southern Afghanistan, on Saturday, local police chief Gulam Rassol said. Ten suspected rebels were also captured. U.S.-led coalition troops and Afghan police had raided a rebel camp in the area and were still searching Sunday for more insurgents, he said.

The cleric, Mohammed Nabi Misbah, a senior member of Afghanistan's Islamic clergy, the Ulema Council, was shot Sunday as he drove from his office to his home in Kandahar, city police chief Gen. Ayub Salangi said.

He was taken to a nearby U.S. military base for treatment, but died, Salangi said.

It was the second attack on a prominent pro-government cleric in the city in just over a month. In late May, cleric Abdul Fayaz, also a supporter of President Hamid Karzai, was shot dead. At his funeral, a suicide bomber killed 20 people.

Taliban-led rebels have targeted hundreds of people linked to Karzai's U.S.-backed government in an unprecedented spree of violence since March that has left nearly 700 people dead and threatened three years of progress toward peace.