Kabul, 6 Nov. (AKI) - Two soldiers are missing in western Afghanistan after failing to return from a routine resupply mission, NATO officials said on Friday. Extensive search and rescue operations were being conducted in a bid to find the soldiers who disappeared on Wednesday.

In a statement, NATO did not reveal the soldiers' nationalities or say which province where they had gone missing.

Local police said the two were Americans who were swept away by a river in the western province of Badghis.

Military officials said the families of the two soldiers had been informed.

NATO added that three of its soldiers were killed in two separate roadside bomb attacks on Thursday.

Two of the soldiers were American, but the nationality of the third was not given.

Military officials told journalists that they did not suspect the case was similar to that of an American soldier who was captured by insurgents in eastern Afghanistan in June.

"We continue exhaustive search and rescue operations to locate our missing service members," spokeswoman Navy Capt. Jane Campbell said in the NATO statement. "We are doing everything we can to find them."

Soldiers from more than 40 countries are taking part in NATO's force of nearly 110,000 troops in Afghanistan and two-thirds of them come from the US.

The biggest contingents operating in the west of the country are from the United States and Italy.