Two Afghan national air force students assigned to Moody Air Force Base near Valdosta have been reported missing.
"There's zero evidence that these guys are terrorists," said Brian Childress, police chief in Valdosta, which is near Moody Air Force Base.
The two men, whose names were not released, are both assigned to the 81st Fighter Squadron, but did not show up for work Monday, Moody said in an emailed statement. The two arrived at Moody in February and were screened before their arrival on U.S. soil, more than a year ago, according to officials.
“The students have trained alongside American counterparts for the entirety of 2015 and do not pose any apparent threat,” Moody said. “There is a well-coordinated process among federal agencies to locate the individuals as quickly as possible and return them accordingly to the proper authorities to manage their present situation.”
The 81st Fighter Squadron was re-activated in January and charged with training Afghan airmen, who arrived the following month. The squadron will grow to 20 A-29 Super Tucano aircraft that will be used to train 30 Afghan pilots and 90 maintainers at Moody through 2018, the Air Force previously said.
Federal, local and state agencies are working with the military to find the men, Childress said Wednesday. Moody officials informed him Tuesday morning the men were missing, he said. The men's names and other details about them have not been released.
Both men were being trained in aircraft maintenance and were scheduled to graduate from their program Dec. 18, said Lt. Col. Chris Karns, an Air Force spokesman. After graduation, they were to return to Afghanistan to begin working with A-29 Super Tucano airplanes in their home country, Karns said.
The military has no reason to believe they present a threat to anyone, said Karns. They were screened by both the U.S. and the government of Afghanistan before their arrival in the United States more than a year ago, he said.
The two had been at Moody since February 2015 as part of the training program aimed at improving the Afghanistan air force, according to the base's statement.
The program's goal is to train a total of 30 Afghan pilots and 90 Afghan maintenance personnel during a four-year period, Moody Air Force Base said in an August 2014 release when the program was announced. It was not clear how many trainees from Afghanistan are currently at the base.
Conducting such training at a U.S. base instead of Afghanistan is safer, Karns said.
Base officials met with local law enforcement several months ago to plan for the possibility that some of the Afghanistan trainees could go absent without leave, Childress said.
"Anytime you bring in foreign military to our country, you have to prepare for that kind of thing," Childress said.
He said that on Tuesday, he began hearing from Valdosta residents concerned about the missing men "in light of what's happened out in San Bernardino," but he called this "a totally difference circumstance."
"You've got to remember these folks were cleared by the U.S. military and by the Department of Defense to come in and train," Childress said. "These guys have been here since February of 2015, and they have not caused a problem at all."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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