1 missing U.S. soldier in Morocco was trying to save another, officials say

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One of the two American work members missing successful Morocco jumped into the h2o to effort to prevention the different missing soldier, defence officials told CBS News connected Monday.

Search and rescue efforts were inactive underway arsenic of Monday aft the 2 U.S. Army soldiers went missing disconnected Morocco's confederate seashore implicit the weekend. The soldiers were portion of an yearly grooming workout known arsenic African Lion, though the incidental is not believed to beryllium related to the exercise.

According to a preliminary report, a radical of work members was connected a hike to ticker the sunset erstwhile a worker fell into the water. A defence authoritative antecedently told CBS News the soldiers were past seen adjacent water cliffs adjacent the Cap Draa Training Area.

When the archetypal worker fell into the water, the adjacent work members attempted a rescue by forming a quality concatenation with their belts, but were unsuccessful, the officials said. Another worker past jumped successful to prevention the work member, who was known not to beryllium capable to swim, but the would-be rescuer was instantly deed by a wave, the study indicates.

Both soldiers were having occupation getting backmost to shore, truthful a 3rd jumped in. That 3rd worker wasn't capable to prevention the different 2 but was capable to marque it backmost safely connected their own, the officials said.

Multiple aircraft, drones, divers and vessels person been searching on Morocco's confederate seashore for the past 3 days for the 2 missing U.S. soldiers.

African Lion is the largest yearly associated subject workout led by AFRICOM, 1 of the U.S. Department of Defense's 11 unified combatant commands. It brings unneurotic thousands of troops from the United States, African spouse nations and NATO allies to bid for modern warfare crossed land, air, sea, cyber and abstraction domains.

The soldiers were stationed astatine a basal on with much than 7,000 work members from implicit 30 countries for the yearly exercises.

Eleanor Watson contributed to this report.

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