NATO-led forces killed the Taliban militants responsible for shooting down a U.S. helicopter last weekend but not the insurgent leader targeted in the doomed mission, 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 the U.S. military in the Afghan war. Eight Afghans were also killed in the crash in a remote valley southwest of Kabul, according to Reuters. Allen acknowledged that the main Taliban leader sought in the Aug. 6 operation was still at large. "Did we get the leader that we were going after in the initial operation? No, we did not," Allen said. "And we're going to continue to pursue that network." Allen defended the decision to send in the elite team, saying it was necessary to chase militants who were escaping an ongoing operation that targeted 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," Allen told Pentagon reporters via video-conference from Kabul. 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 elite team of U.S. forces was sent in to help complete an operation started late on Friday by an ISAF Special Operations Command team that included at least some U.S. Rangers in central Maidan Wardak province. -- SPA
