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US Refuses to Comment on Report of Captured US Commandos
The US Defense Department Saturday refused to comment on a press report that three US commandos and two Afghans holding US citizenship had been arrested in western Afghanistan.
"We're not going to get into the habit of commenting on every story that comes out of that region. It's a slippery slope once we start getting into that habit," a Pentagon spokesman said.
The spokesman said there was no evidence lending credence to the report. The Pentagon is no longer investigating the facts, as it believes the report is untrue, he added.
According to a report from the Arabian language Al-Jazeera TV, which originates in Qatar, three American commandos and two Afghans assisting them were captured in Afghanistan on a Special Operation force mission.
The report did not say whether the five had been caught by the Taliban or by Saudi-born extremist Osama bin Laden 's organization, al Qaeda.
Meanwhile, the Taliban Militia's official news agency on Saturday denied the report.
On Friday, a senior U.S. White House official told the CNN that U.S. and British special forces have conducted operations in Afghanistan and the Central Asian region.
The military operations, described as routinely done to scout out the situation when forces are deployed to a region, were conducted "in the region" and "in country," meaning Afghanistan, said the official, who asked not to be identified.
The United States has named bin Laden as the prime suspect in the September 11 hijacked airliner attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Defense Department building in Washington that left more than 6,000 people dead or missing. The attacks have triggered the U.S. military's biggest mobilization since the 1991 Gulf War.
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