Missing SEAL's Body Found

U.S. Military Says Commando Apparently Died While Battling Enemy

(AP) 
Yonts said the commando's body was found near the chopper crash site in an area "that we had looked over before, but where his body was located was hard to find."

The name of the commando was not immediately released, pending notification of family.

U.S. and Afghan officials have warned that the violence is likely to worsen in the lead-up to legislative elections in September — the country's next key step toward democracy after a quarter century of war.

Yonts said the U.S. military was preparing to deploy an airborne infantry battalion based in Fort Bragg, N.C., to provide additional troops for the 20,000-strong U.S.-led coalition. He gave no other details about the deployment.

Kunar province has long been a hotbed of militant activity and a haven for fighters loyal to renegade former premier Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who is wanted by the United States. U.S. officials said al Qaeda fighters also were in the region. Osama bin Laden was not said to be there — though he is believed to be somewhere along the Afghanistan-Pakistan frontier.

The region's wooded mountains are popular with militants because they are easy to infiltrate from neighboring Pakistan and have plenty of places to hide.

Meanwhile, suspected Taliban gunmen ambushed a border patrol in the desert near the frontier with Pakistan, killing and beheading 10 Afghan soldiers, a provincial governor said Sunday. Violence elsewhere left 15 rebels and soldiers dead.

The 25-member patrol was attacked Saturday in southern Helmand province by militants driving four four-wheel-drive pickups, said provincial Gov. Sher Mohammed Aghunzada.

The insurgents killed 10 soldiers; 15 fled the ambush, Aghunzada said.

"The Taliban cut the heads off all the soldiers who were killed," he said. Aghunzada said the dead soldiers' bodies had been recovered.

He said the assailants launched the assault after driving across the border from Pakistan and returned across the frontier. The border is unguarded in that remote area.

Twelve other Afghan soldiers were killed Sunday when a land mine blew up under their vehicle in Paktika province, also near the border with Pakistan, provincial deputy police chief Ghulam Nabi said.

He said it wasn't clear if the mine was one of hundreds of thousands of old mines left over from a quarter century of fighting, or had been newly planted.