Body of second missing U.S. sailor found in Afghanistan

KABUL, Afghanistan - The second U.S. sailor who went missing in eastern Afghanistan last week has been found dead and his body recovered.

The discovery Wednesday ended the urgent manhunt that began Friday evening when two U.S. Navy service members drove away from Camp Julien on the outskirts of Kabul and ended up in an apparent Taliban ambush in Logar province.

Petty Officer 2nd Class Justin McNeley, 30, of Wheat Ridge, Colo., and Petty Officer 3rd Class Jarod Newlove, 25, from the Seattle area, worked at NATO's counter-insurgency academy, NATO officials said.

U.S. troops recovered McNeley's body Sunday morning, but they held out hope that Newlove might be alive. But Wednesday evening, Newlove's body was found in Charkh in a village called Yousef, said Din Mohammad Darwish, a spokesman for the Logar governor.

Darwish said Newlove had been shot three times and might have been wounded in an initial attack Friday evening as the sailors drove their armored sport utility vehicle through the area. NATO officials said that Newlove's body was found in the water and that he appeared to have been beaten to death.

Darwish said early in the search the Taliban had been demanding the release of four insurgent commanders in return for Newlove, but no prisoner exchange was made.

It remains unclear how the two U.S. sailors drove into Logar province, a dangerous area south of Kabul where the Taliban controls swaths of territory. Some NATO officials said they might have taken a wrong turn intending to head back to Kabul and found themselves on the road to Logar.