Missing US troops 'found dead'
Missing US troops 'found dead'
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Tuesday, 20, Jun 2006 07:12
Two US soldiers kidnapped by masked insurgents in the so-called 'triangle of death', south of Baghdad, have been found dead, Iraq's defence ministry has said.
Major General Abdul Aziz Mohammed claimed the two bodies were discovered on a street near a power plant in the town of Yusifiya, 15 miles south of the Iraqi capital.
The US military has so far refrained from confirming or denying whether the bodies are those of missing soldiers Private Kristian Menchaca, 23, and Private Thomas Tucker, 25, from the 101st Airborne Division.
Eyewitness reports suggested the two soldiers were in their US humvee when they were ambushed by gunmen earlier this week. Another soldier was killed in the ambush.
A statement published on the internet purportedly by the Mujahideen Shura Council, a collection of insurgents that includes al-Qaida in Iraq, has claimed that it killed the two soldiers, but it cannot be independently verified.
A huge-scale search operation, including helicopters, aircraft and ground forces, was deployed to recover the missing soldiers.
Diving teams had even been employed to search the canal for bodies in the troubled town of Yusifiya – a renowned troublespot ever since coalition forces toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003.
The Mujahedeen Shura Council, an umbrella organisation covering a number of terrorist organisations in Iraq, said that the new leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Hamza al-Muhajer, had personally committed the murders by slitting the throats of the two soldiers in his own hands.
If the reports are confirmed, the recent optimism shown by the Bush administration is likely to subside once more.
Figures released recently confirmed that 2,500 US casualties have died in Iraq.