This November 7, 2009 file photograph shows an US Army Chinook helicopter landing on a hill in Kabul. A search operation continued for two US paratroopers missing in remote northwest Afghanistan as NATO said 25 soldiers were wounded during the hunt following a clash with militants.NICOLAS ASFOURI
NATO-led forces killed the Taliban militants responsible for shooting down a U.S. helicopter last weekend but not the insurgent leader initially sought, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan said on Wednesday.
The disclosure by General John Allen came during a briefing on the crash that killed 30 U.S. forces -- most of them elite Navy SEALs -- in the single deadliest incident for U.S. forces in the Afghan war. Eight Afghans were also killed.
The incident has drawn attention in the United States, partly because of the high death toll.
U.S. President Barack Obama flew to Dover Air Force Base on Tuesday to watch the arrival of the remains of those killed and the military has launched an investigation into the incident.
Mr. Allen defended the decision to send in the elite team, saying it was deemed necessary at the time to go after Taliban "elements that were escaping" from an ongoing operation to target an important Taliban leader.
"We committed a force to contain that element from getting out. And, of course, in the process of that, the aircraft was struck by an RPG (rocket-propelled grenade) and crashed," Mr. Allen told Pentagon reporters via video-conference from Kabul.
Mr. Allen said a subsequent air strike around midnight on Aug. 8 killed other Taliban insurgents believed to be behind the attack -- an assertion the Taliban immediately challenged.
The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force named those killed as Taliban leader Mullah Mohibullah and the insurgent who it said fired the shot tied to the Aug. 6 downing of the CH-47 helicopter. It said the two men were attempting to flee the country.
Still, Mr. Allen acknowledged that the main Taliban leader sought in the Aug. 6 operation was still at large.
In Afghanistan, Zabihullah Mujahid, a spokesman for the Taliban, denied the NATO claims that the fighters responsible for shooting down the helicopter were killed.
"The person who shot down the helicopter is alive and he is in another province operating against (foreign forces)," he told Reuters by telephone from an undisclosed location.
The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan also announced the same news.
"We dealt with them in a kinetic strike," General John Allen, the commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, told reporters at the Pentagon.