Afghan Taliban deny have missing U.S. troops' bodies

KABUL (Reuters) - The Taliban denied on Sunday they were holding the bodies of two U.S. soldiers who had gone missing last week in northwestern Afghanistan after earlier claiming they had recovered the two dead servicemen.

The disappearance of the two paratroopers from U.S. 82nd Airborne Division during a resupply mission on Wednesday, triggered a search by NATO and Afghan forces of Badghis province, near the border with Turkmenistan.

Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid told Reuters by telephone the Islamist militant group had not retrieved the bodies of soldiers whom they say drowned in Badghis. Provincial officials also believe the missing Americans have drowned.

On Friday a NATO air strike, which was called-in after a battle erupted while Afghan and foreign troops conducted their search for the bodies, mistakenly killed seven Afghan soldiers and police, the Afghan Defence Ministry said.

The NATO-led force has confirmed the air strike deaths and said an eighth Afghan, a civilian working with the military, was also killed. The force said it was investigating whether its air strikes were responsible for the deaths.

The Afghan government struck a cease-fire deal with Taliban insurgents in Badghis in July, nevertheless the province has witnessed an increase in insurgent activity in recent months.

Reports of missing soldiers in Afghanistan are rare and immediately trigger a large-scale military response.

(Reporting by Hamid Shalizi; writing by Yara Bayoumy; editing by Sanjeev Miglani)