GARDEZ, Afghanistan'As U.S. aircraft pressed a bombing campaign against several hundred al Qaeda and Taliban fighters near here Tuesday, officials said that the first of seven Americans killed the previous day survived a fall from a helicopter only to be captured and killed by enemy troops.
The incident was captured on streaming video transmitted from a surveillance aircraft. At a remote site, Maj. Gen. Frank L. Hagenbeck watched helplessly.
The Chinook helicopter had just touched down. As soldiers climbed out, a rocket-propelled grenade rocked the craft, sending the men back aboard for a rapid liftoff. In the confusion, apparently no one noticed that the attack had sent Navy SEAL Neil C. Roberts of Woodland, Calif., tumbling to the ground.
\We saw him ... being dragged off by three al Qaeda men,"" Hagenbeck said.
By the time rescuers reached Petty Officer 1st Class Roberts, he had been fatally shot.
The firefight intensified Tuesday, with U.S. forces targeting groups as small as three, and others larger than 100 in a broad, mountainous region. As additional Afghan and U.S. troops were moved into position to strengthen the offensive, Afghan commanders allied with the U.S. predicted that it was just a matter of time before all resistance to Afghanistan's new interim government was crushed.
No one knows how long the current engagement will take. The offensive has become the largest of the Afghan war, and the bloodiest for U.S. soldiers. Tuesday, soldiers involved in the fight and local Afghans described the ongoing battle as extremely intense. Despite initial setbacks that seem to have prompted a more cautious approach, U.S. soldiers and local Afghans reported that they have killed many more suspected al Qaeda holdouts, in the snow-capped mountains of southeastern Afghanistan, than the Pentagon had previously disclosed.
""On Tuesday we caught several hundred of them with [rocket-propelled grenades] and mortars heading toward the fight. We body slammed them ... and killed hundreds of those guys,"" Hagenbeck said.
But U.S. military strategists believe hundreds of al Qaeda fighters remain, Gen. John W. Rosa, deputy director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at a Pentagon briefing.
About 1,000 U.S. troops have been engaged in the fight against the well-entrenched Taliban and al Qaeda force, whose numbers are unclear.
