NATO-led forces say a military diving team has found the body of one of the two US soldiers who had drowned in a river in western Afghanistan.

The two soldiers drowned last week, while trawling in the Badghis province's Bala-Murghab River for airdropped supply packages.

NATO said on Wednesday that the alliance forces would continue searching for the second body.

The Taliban militants had denied they were holding the bodies of the two US soldiers.

Earlier, the search for the two soldiers resulted in the deaths of eight Afghan soldiers in “friendly-fire.” The Afghan soldiers were killed when a "friendly aircraft arrived in support, but fired at troops by mistake," local Police Chief Mohammed Jabbar was quoted by Xinhua as saying.

Another US soldier has been missing in the southeast since June.

Militants say they had kidnapped the soldier in the troubled region where there has been an upsurge in the attacks over the past few weeks.

JR/MMN