Story highlights There was a firefight on the ground in which seven enemy fighters were killed

The university has become a target of Taliban-linked insurgents in recent weeks

Washington (CNN) A few days after an American and Australian were kidnapped from American University in Kabul last month, US Special Operations Forces from SEAL Team 6 attempted to rescue them but failed to find them at the location they went to, according to three administration officials.

There was a firefight on the ground in which seven enemy fighters were killed, according to the officials.

The US was never certain the professors were at the site, or if they were, when they had been moved. Some electronic media was recovered indicating the identities of those who were holding them.

SEAL Team 6 used a HALO jump, which is a high altitude jump from an aircraft, in the operation. A HALO is generally only attempted when there is no other option.

The American University in Afghanistan opened in 2006. It's the only private, nonprofit, coed university in that country and has about 1,700 full- and part-time students. The school is regarded as a symbol of cooperation between Afghanistan and the United States.

Read More</s>U.S. Special Operations forces conducted a secret raid last month to rescue Western hostages in Afghanistan but failed to recover the men, the Pentagon said Thursday.

Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said President Barack Obama, acting on a recommendation from Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, authorized the August mission to rescue the two civilian hostages in an unspecified area of Afghanistan.

U.S. officials believed the hostages, an American and Australian who were professors at the American University in Kabul and were seized at gunpoint in early August, were being held in eastern Afghanistan by the Haqqani network, a hard-line Taliban faction.

During the raid, a team of Navy SEALs touched down under the cover of night at a compound where the hostages were believed to be held. The hostages were not there, but a group of militants was, leading to a firefight in which seven militants were killed, officials said. No Americans were wounded.

"Military hostage rescue operations are inherently sensitive and dangerous, and careful deliberation went into this mission," Cook said in a statement. "The United States military remains fully prepared to take extraordinary steps to protect American citizens anywhere in the world."

The attempt to rescue the kidnapped professors, American Kevin King and Australian national Timothy Weeks, was first reported by Fox News. Officials declined to say whether they know the current whereabouts of the hostages.

It was the SEAL team's second attempt in two days to recover the men. A night earlier, the elite forces had boarded their aircraft and flown toward their target even before their mission had secured presidential approval, officials said. They were forced to turn back because the proposal for the raid had not reached the White House with sufficient time for it to be reviewed and presented to President Obama for approval.

"There was a very narrow window before the sun came up," said a defense official who like others interviewed spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the record.

By the next night, Obama's most senior advisers had studied the plan, assessing the intelligence about the hostages' whereabouts and the risks to American personnel. The president signed off on it, meaning the nighttime raid could go forward.

"The president authorized this mission when it was presented to him, with the careful review and recommendation of his national-security team, soon after the Pentagon submitted their request," a senior administration official said.

Some officials stressed the unusual nature of the SEALs' step in initiating the raid the first night without having the required approval beforehand.

Officials also said there was disagreement among intelligence experts about whether the hostages had been at the compound the first night and possibly moved before the raid occurred on the second night, or whether they were never there.

The administration was also scrambling to inform the families of the abducted men even as they coordinated with the Afghan and Australian governments in responding to the disappearance.

The raid took place as a reduced U.S. military force seeks to help Afghan troops confront a resurgent Taliban. While the Obama administration declared an end to combat operations in 2014 and Western nations have pulled out most of their troops, militants continue to threaten the government, this week launching an offensive to capture a provincial capital.

Militants have also struck Western targets in the Afghan capital repeatedly, including restaurants, embassies and aid organizations. Several weeks after the professors' kidnapping, militants attacked the American University in a prolonged assault.

It is not the first time the U.S. military has attempted to rescue Western hostages in Afghanistan. A Navy SEAL won a Medal of Honor for his role in the 2012 operation to rescue an American doctor kidnapped in eastern Afghanistan. In 2010, a British aid worker was accidentally killed by U.S. forces during a rescue attempt in eastern Afghanistan.</s>WASHINGTON (AP) - U.S special operations forces launched a rescue mission to retrieve two men kidnapped by insurgents in Afghanistan last month, but the hostages were not there when the rescue team arrived, U.S. defense officials said Thursday.

Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said the rescue mission was approved by Defense Secretary Ash Carter and authorized by the president. Cook said no U.S. personnel or civilians were injured and added that he would not provide any more details “in order to protect the safety of hostages and operational security.”

According to defense officials, the mission was delayed one day because of questions about the intelligence and whether the hostages, an American and an Australian who worked at the American University of Afghanistan, were there. Officials would not provide the precise timing or location of the rescue attempt because they said it could jeopardize any possible future operations.

Because of questions about the intelligence — including the degree of confidence in the information that the men were at that location — administration officials did not forward the mission request to President Barack Obama until the next day, officials said. Obama approved the mission, and commandos went out that next night.

The officials said that when U.S. commandos arrived at the location, they killed seven enemy fighters. They said that based on interviews with people at the site, it’s still not clear if the hostages were ever there.

The officials were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly, so spoke on condition of anonymity.

The two men were kidnapped from their vehicle as they traveled from the university to their residence in Kabul last month. The rescue was attempted not long after their kidnapping.</s>U.S. attempted to rescue two hostages in Afghanistan -Pentagon

WASHINGTON, Sept 8 (Reuters) - U.S. forces attempted to rescue two civilian hostages in Afghanistan last month, but the captives were not at the location and no U.S. personnel or civilians were harmed in the attempt, the Pentagon said on Thursday.

"In August, at the recommendation of Secretary Carter, President Obama authorized U.S. forces to conduct a mission in Afghanistan, aimed at recovering two civilian hostages," Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said in a statement.

"Unfortunately, the hostages were not at the location we suspected," Cook said.

He added that U.S. forces "engaged and killed a number of hostile forces."

The identities of the hostages were not disclosed.

In early August, two faculty members of the American University of Afghanistan, one American and one Australian, were abducted at gunpoint from a road near the university in Kabul. (Reporting by Idrees Ali in Washington and Phil Stewart in Oslo; Editing by Peter Cooney)
United States Navy SEALs, by high altitude parachuting, fail in a rescue attempt after the team does not find the American and Australian hostages who were kidnapped in Kabul last month.