Missing GI Found Dead

The body of a missing U.S. commando has been located in eastern Afghanistan, the military said Monday, bringing an end to the desperate search for the last member of an ill-fated, four-man special forces unit that disappeared last month.

One of the four men was rescued on July 3, and the other two were found dead the next day.

The body of the fourth U.S. Navy SEAL was found Sunday in Kunar province by a search and rescue team, the military said in a statement. It said all indications are that he died in fighting, despite a claim by a purported Taliban spokesman that he was captured alive and then beheaded.

"The location and disposition of the service member's remains indicate he died while fighting off enemy terrorists on or about June 28," the statement said.

The name of the dead American commando was not immediately released, pending notification of next of kin.

The Taliban spokesman, Mullah Latif Hakimi, never offered proof to back up his claim that the rebels were holding the commando, or that they had killed him. Information from Hakimi in the past has sometimes proven exaggerated or untrue, and his exact tie to the Taliban leadership cannot be independently verified.

The Navy SEAL team has been missing since a special forces helicopter carrying reinforcements to a mountainous area in eastern Kunar province was shot down on June 28, killing all 16 Americans on board, the deadliest single attack on the U.S. military since the war here began in 2001.