Revenge strike kills Taleban who shot down Seals' Chinook

The Taleban insurgents responsible for downing a US Chinook helicopter and killing 38 US and Afghan forces over the weekend have been killed.

Marine Corps General John Allen said in Washington that forces learned where the insurgents had fled to and attacked them in an early morning air strike.

The strike killed Taleban leader Mullah Mohibullah and the insurgent who fired the rocket-propelled grenade that downed the Chinook helicopter.

General Allen said that an F-16 airstrike took out fewer than ten insurgents involved in the attack on the helicopter.

The military said intelligence gained on the ground provided a high degree of confidence that the insurgent who fired the grenade was the person killed. It did not provide further details.

Gen Allen defended the decision to send in the Chinook loaded with special operations forces to pursue insurgents escaping from the weekend firefight with Army Rangers in a dangerous region of Wardak province of eastern Afghanistan.

"We've run more than a couple of thousand of these night operations over the last year, and this is the only occasion where this has occurred," he said. "The fact that we lost this aircraft is not… a decision point as to whether we'll use this aircraft in the future. It's not uncommon at all to use this aircraft on our special missions."

While officials believe the helicopter was shot down by a rocket-propelled grenade, General Allen said the military's investigation into the crash will also review whether small arms fire or other causes contributed to the crash.

Gen Allen and other officials would not discuss the details of the investigation, but it is expected it will include a look at the insurgent threat and the instructions given to the special operations team that crowded into the helicopter as it raced to assist other US forces.

According to officials, the team included 22 Navy Seal personnel, three airmen, a five-member army air crew and a military dog, along with seven Afghan commandos and an Afghan interpreter.

The investigation comes after the remains of the troops killed in the crash were returned to the US on Tuesday in an operation shrouded in secrecy. The Defence Department that has refused so far to release the names of the fallen and denied media coverage of the arrival at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware.

Two C-17 aircraft carrying the remains were met by President Barack Obama and military chiefs.

The investigation will review a number of basic crash questions, which will probably rule out such factors as the weather, terrain and mechanical issues, since military officials believe the helicopter was shot down. It will also look at the flight of the Chinook into the fighting zone.