© Ahmad Masood / Reuters
"During the month of September, seven Afghan students were considered absent without leave (AWOL) during international military student programs," Pentagon spokesman Cmdr. Patrick L. Evans has said, according to the Washington Free Beacon. Later, Evans also confirmed his statement to Fox News.
Three soldiers from Afghanistan have been missing from their bases in different parts of the US since September 17-18, when two states - New Jersey and New York - were struck by two bombings. Both were linked to Ahmad Rahami, a radicalized Afghan-born US citizen.
Two of the missing Afghans had been undergoing training at Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri, and one was at Fort Gordon in Georgia. To be considered AWOL, a student needs to be absent from scheduled training for more than 24 hours.
According to the Beacon, in those cases, their fleeing was coordinated, and the three are being probed for possible connections to Rahami.
However, as an unnamed Army source told the newspaper, officials see no connection between the students disappearing and the timing of the two bombings.
The "initial assessment is that there is no relation and the timing is coincidental," the source said, while Evans refused to comment on whether the Pentagon has any security concerns.
Besides the three students, there are another four Afghan trainees who also disappeared earlier in September.
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