Al Qaeda in Iraq Taunts America Over Kidnapped GIs

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BAGHDAD, Iraq – An Al Qaeda-linked group said yesterday that it was holding captive two American privates, one from Texas and the other from Oregon, and taunted the American military for failing to find the soldiers despite a search involving more than 8,000 Iraqi and American troops.

The Mujahedeen Shura Council, an umbrella organization for a variety of insurgent factions led by Al Qaeda in Iraq, offered no video, identification cards, or other evidence to prove that it has the Americans. The group had vowed to seek revenge for the June 7 killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, in an American airstrike.

Besides the troops, the American military said yesterday that it has deployed fighter jets, helicopters, unmanned drones, boats, and dive teams in the hunt for the soldiers, who disappeared Friday in a region south of Baghdad known as the “Triangle of Death.”

Residents said the Americans slapped a 3 p.m.-to-6 a.m. curfew in the area and were conducting house-to-house raids, arresting anyone found not to be a permanent resident. They said American and Iraqi soldiers were demanding to see each family’s food ration card, which lists the number of beneficiaries, so as to single out outsiders.

Troops searching for the soldiers killed three suspected insurgents and detained 34 in fighting that also left seven American servicemen wounded, a military spokesman, Major General William Caldwell, said.

The area is among the most dangerous in Iraq for American troops and mostly populated by minority Sunni Arabs, the backbone of Iraq’s three-year-old insurgency. The two soldiers were missing after an attack on their traffic checkpoint that left one of their comrades dead.

Ahmed Khalaf Falah, a farmer, told the Associated Press that he witnessed seven masked gunmen seize the soldiers near Youssifiyah, about 12 miles south of Baghdad.

General Caldwell did not comment on claims that insurgents had seized the two men, saying only that they were listed as “duty status and whereabouts unknown.”

Secretary of State Rice said there was “great concern” over the soldiers.

“The American military has made very clear that they are going to do everything possible … to try and find them,” she told reporters.

The Mujahedeen Shura Council did not make threats or demands in the abduction of Private First Class Kristian Menchaca, 23, of Houston, and Private First Class Thomas Tucker, 25, of Madras, Ore., saying only that “we shall give you more details about the incident in the next few days, God willing.” Specialist David Babineau, 25, of Springfield, Mass., was killed in the attack on the checkpoint.

All three were from the 101st Airborne Division based at Fort Campbell, Ky.

The Shura Council taunted the military by saying it had “launched a campaign of raids using armor and equipment, in the region around the incident, but the army of ‘the strongest nation in the world’ retreated in defeat and disgrace.”

In a fresh blow to the image of American troops in Iraq, the U.S. Army charged three soldiers in connection with the deaths of three Iraqi men while they were in military custody on May 9 during an operation near Thar Thar Canal in Salahuddin province north of Baghdad.

The soldiers belonged to the 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division, the military said in its announcement yesterday. At least 15 service members have been convicted on a range of charges in the deaths of Iraqi civilians since the beginning of the war.


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