Lockheed F-16
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WASHINGTON: Taliban forces may have spirited a missing US soldier from Afghanistan to neighbouring Pakistan, reports US television network ABC News.
It said that two people involved in US and Afghan military efforts to locate Bowe R. Bergdahl were of the opinion that moving the GI across the border would complicate the efforts to obtain his release.
The 23-year-old soldier from Ketchum, Idaho, is the second US serviceman captured since the US invasion of Afghanistan eight years ago. He was taken along with three Afghan soldiers on June 30 in the Paktika province in south-eastern Afghanistan.
ABC reported a person actively involved in the search said a high-level Afghan insurgent commander had claimed responsibility for capturing Bergdahl and had moved him to South Waziristan.
US forces are not allowed to operate inside Pakistan except in limited instances.
Mullah Sangeen, the Taliban commander who reportedly captured the soldier wants the United States to stop its aerial attacks on the region in return for Mr Bergdahls release.
US military officials in Afghanistan, however, insist that the soldier is still inside Afghanistan.
But the media report said Mr Bergdahls location was identified in field reports from people operating in Pakistans tribal areas.
Mr Bergdahl was recently seen at a Mullah Sangeens training camp, just inside Pakistan, the report claimed.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told ABC News that she was not allowed to talk about where Mr Bergdahl might be.
Chairman of US Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen also refused to disclose the soldiers location, saying that he could not share intelligence perspective with the media.
The Taliban released a video over the weekend of a visibly shaken American soldier.
or 'GHULAM'
