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VIRGINIA BEACH — More than a mile above sea level in the Afghan mountains, four SEALs on a reconnaissance mission on June 28 took enemy fire in terrain thick with Taliban and al-Qaida fighters. A crew of eight Army Special Forces and eight Navy SEALs heard their emergency call, boarded a specially-equipped MH-47 Chinook helicopter and sped into the mountain fight. They would not return alive. On Friday morning, the aftershock of the Afghan battle resonated through a naval base and a community 7,000 miles away. Nearly 2,600 mourners converged on Little Creek Naval Amphibious Base to remember and...

KABUL, Afghanistan - American warplanes bombed a suspected Taliban compound in an area where an elite U.S. military team has been missing for five days in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan, a U.S. military spokesman said Saturday. It was not clear if there were any casualties from the airstrike. "We conducted an airstrike on a target we deemed we had to hit immediately. The target was an enemy compound in Kunar province," U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. Jerry O'Hara said. "The bombing was done using precision guided munitions. The target objective was intelligence driven." He said a "battle damage assessment...

Steve Reich never expressed regret that his promising professional baseball career lasted only two games for a Baltimore Orioles farm team before the Army summoned him back to active duty 10 years ago. "When the Army said they couldn't spare him, that was it," said Gary Fitzherbert, a longtime friend of the Reich family in Washington, Conn. "No argument. Baseball was a big dream, but it always came second place to the service." Major Reich, 34, a West Point graduate, was in the command seat of the Chinook MH-47 helicopter that was shot down on Tuesday in a treacherous mountain...

Dozens arrested, explosives seized in Anbar sweep BAGHDAD, Iraq — U.S. and Iraqi forces in the western province of Anbar have seized thousands of pounds of explosives and arrested dozens of suspected insurgents in a three-day sweep, military officials said yesterday. The thrust by about 1,000 U.S. Marines, soldiers and sailors and 100 Iraqi troops, called Operation Sword, centered on towns along the Euphrates River about 90 miles west of Baghdad. Marine spokesmen have said the operation, like other recent sweeps farther west, is aimed at driving insurgents out of towns and disrupting their ability to move guerrillas, weapons and...

U.S. helicopters and hundreds of troops were searching on Friday for soldiers who went missing in Afghanistan just before a helicopter coming to their aid was shot down, while the Taliban claimed to be holding one American. U.S. forces looking for members of the reconnaissance team since Tuesday's helicopter crash in mountainous Kunar province bordering Pakistan have no reason to believe any of them have been killed or captured, U.S. spokesmen said. Col. Jim Yonts said he could neither confirm nor deny a claim by Taliban spokesman Abdul Latif Hakimi that insurgents killed seven U.S. "spies" before the Chinook helicopter...

NEW YORK -(Dow Jones)- As many as 1,000 U.S. Marines and soldiers are engaged in what a Pentagon spokesman called "an ongoing rescue mission" in eastern Afghanistan, ABC News reported Thursday night. The comment came at a Pentagon news conference in which officials announced the recovery of all 16 bodies of U.S. military personnel on a helicopter which was flying reinforcements to troops operating in eastern Afghanistan. (MORE TO FOLLOW)

A Marine Corps helicopter circles over the town of Hit, 125 miles west of Baghdad, on Thursday during a mission in support of Operation Sword. More than 1,000 U.S. troops and Iraqi forces aim to crush insurgents and foreign fighters in western Iraq in the operation, the third major offensive in the area in recent weeks. (Jacob Silberberg / AP photo)

KABUL, July 1 (Reuters) - U.S. forces remain unable to locate a small U.S. reconnaissance team that a Special Forces unit was going to support when their helicopter was shot down, killing all 16 troops aboard, the U.S. military said on Friday. While U.S. forces do not know the whereabouts of the team, they have no reason to believe that its members, last heard of shortly before Tuesday afternoon's crash, had been killed or captured, U.S. spokesman Colonel Jim Yonts said. Yonts said he could "not confirm or deny" a claim by Taliban spokesman Abdul Latif Hakimi that the insurgents...

KABUL, Afghanistan, June30 - United States and Afghan troops today reached the site of a downed military helicopter that crashed in a mountainous area this week, the United States military announced. The military said Wednesday that the aircrft appeared to have been brought down by hostile fire. The Chinook helicopter was carrying 17 people, including 8 Navy Seal commandos and other Special Operations troops, members of a so-called quick reaction force that had been sent after radio calls from troops on the ground saying they were in combat with insurgents, according to a military official in Washington. There was no...

The U.S. military confirmed Thursday that all 16 servicemembers aboard a special forces helicopter died when it crashed into a mountain ravine earlier this week, apparently after being shot down. The remains of those killed were being recovered at the site in eastern Afghanistan where the MH-47 chopper went down Tuesday. The helicopter crashed while ferrying reinforcements to a battle against the insurgents, the military said in a statement. The military reported earlier that 17 people were on board but revised that figure to 16 later Thursday. "At this point, we have recovered all 16 bodies of those service men...

KABUL, Afghanistan - Rescuers have reached the wreckage of a U.S. special forces helicopter that crashed in a rugged mountain ravine in eastern Afghanistan, but there was no immediate word on the fate of the 17 troops on board, a U.S. military spokesman said Thursday. "We are at the wreckage as we speak," Lt. Col. Jerry O'Hara told The Associated Press. "We are conducting search and recovery operations. But we are more into the recovery stage." He declined to elaborate on efforts to find survivors or the bodies of the 17, who were believed to have died in Tuesday's crash....

KABUL (Reuters) - All 17 U.S. troops aboard an American helicopter that crashed after being hit by ground fire in an anti-militant operation in Afghanistan are believed to have died, a U.S. official said on Wednesday.

The U.S. military said Wednesday that hostile fire likely brought down a Chinook helicopter that crashed in eastern Afghanistan, and officials said the status of the 17 American servicemembers aboard was "unknown." The Chinook helicopter was carrying members of a special operations unit into an operation against al Qaeda and Taliban fighters in the rugged mountains near the border with Pakistan when a second helicopter reported seeing an explosion, reports CBS News National Security Correspondent David Martin. It will take an investigation to determine whether or not this helicopter was, in fact, shot down, Martin added. If it was, this...

KABUL, Afghanistan — A U.S. Chinook helicopter (search) that crashed in eastern Afghanistan was likely shot down by hostile fire, and the fate of 17 American service members aboard was unclear, the U.S. military said Wednesday. The troops were on a mission against Al Qaeda in eastern Afghanistan (search) when the helicopter went down on Tuesday in mountainous terrain near Asadabad, in Kunar province.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A big U.S. military Chinook helicopter that crashed in Afghanistan on Tuesday was carrying between 15 and 20 American troops, according to preliminary reports, a U.S. defense official said. The official, who asked not to be identified, cautioned at the Pentagon that early reports were sketchy from the rugged area near the border with Pakistan.

<p>A U.S. CH-47 Chinook (search) military transport helicopter crashed in Afghanistan Tuesday, FOX News has learned.</p> <p>The chopper went down west of Asadabad (search), the capital of Konar (search) province, while bringing reinforcements into an area where U.S. forces have been fighting Taliban rebels.</p>

Skimming low over the desert in helicopters with guns at the ready, American troops advanced into the Khakeran Valley in southern Afghanistan on Sunday, three months after Taliban rebels attacked police and forced them to flee. The move is the latest part of a strategy to reassert U.S.-led coalition and Afghan control over an insurgent stronghold, after a spate of attacks raised fears of an Iraq-style insurgency here. Blistering U.S. assaults against nearby mountainous rebel camps last week left 178 suspected militants dead. Up to 300 insurgents are suspected to be in the Khakeran Valley, about 220 kilometers (130...