April 01, 2008	Tuesday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 23, 1429

WASHINGTON, March 31: Two soldiers from India have disappeared from a sprawling US Marine base, and the US government is helping the Indian government search for them, the State Department says.

In a statement from the State Department, spokesman Sean McCormack said the unidentified Indians disappeared during a training assignment at Camp Pendleton, a Marine base in southern California.

“Our Office of Foreign Missions in Los Angeles received a letter today from the Indian Consulate in San Francisco requesting assistance in liaising with local law enforcement officials about the missing soldiers,” the statement said on Friday.

It said nothing of the circumstances under which the Indian soldiers were training at the base.

The statement said the State Department was working with the Defence Department and local law enforcement agencies “to provide the Indian government with all the help it needs to locate these individuals.”—AP