British soldier missing in Afghanistan
IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency
London, July 4, IRNA -- A extensive operation has been launched to locate a British soldier who is missing in central Helmand province, Afghanistan, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) in London announced Monday.
The search involves aircraft and ground troops but according to unconfirmed reports, the soldier may already be dead with claims that the Taliban captured and killed one soldier in the area.
The MoD said that the soldier went missing in the early hours of Monday and that his next of kin had been informed. It is believed he was finishing sentry duty at a vehicle checkpoint and rather than join his colleagues appears to have left the small base and disappeared.
BBC correspondent in Kabul said he was told by a local Taliban fighter that insurgents had captured a foreign soldier in the vicinity and after a fire fight the soldier was killed
The UK soldier is thought to be the first to go missing in Afghanistan, although one US soldier, Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl, is understood to have been in Taliban captivity since June 2009 and was taken to Pakistan.
If the death is confirmed the British solder will be the 375th to have been killed in Afghanistan since the overthrow of the Taliban regime in 2001.
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