A US special forces commando was killed during a mission in Afghanistan that succeeded in rescuing a kidnapped American doctor, the White House said Sunday. President Barack Obama said that in carrying out the raid in eastern Afghanistan the commando team had shown "the selfless service that allows our nation to stay strong, safe and free."

The US soldiers killed seven Taliban insurgents in the pre-dawn raid Sunday, launched when intelligence showed that the hostage, Dilip Joseph, was in "imminent danger of injury or death", Nato's International Security Assistance Force said in a statement.

Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2012