The U.S. military was searching Sunday for two soldiers reported missing during a multinational training exercise in Morocco, military officials said.
The two U.S. Army personnel were at an annual training exercise called African Lion that includes some 10,000 people from 20 nations and is hosted by the United States and the North African nation.
A U.S. Defense Department official, speaking on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitive and ongoing search, told The Washington Post that the service members were last seen near sea cliffs and might have fallen into the ocean. The soldiers were not conducting training when they went missing, and the incident was not terrorism-related, the official said.
According to an Army news release, the two were near the Cap Draa Training Area, outside the southern Moroccan city of Tan Tan, when they went missing Saturday. The release did not identify the service members and said the incident is under investigation.
U.S. and Moroccan personnel launched a search after the pair did not return to the exercises as expected.
“This remains an active search-and-rescue operation, and our focus is on locating the missing soldiers,” the source told The Post.
Joining the multinational search were the Moroccan navy, Moroccan mountaineers and divers, the Moroccan Royal Armed Forces, and personnel from other African nations. The official said aerial search teams were using a Moroccan SA-330 Puma and AS332 Super Puma helicopters, a U.S. CH-47 Chinook, unmanned aircraft and a Moroccan navy frigate.
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