Meanwhile, an al-Qaida-linked group said Monday it was holding captive two
U.S. privates, one from Texas and the other from Oregon, and taunted the U.S.
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-Qaida in Iraq, offered no video, identification
cards or other evidence to prove that they have the Americans. The group had
vowed to seek revenge for the June 7 killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader
of al-Qaida in Iraq, in a U.S. airstrike.
The council also said it was responsible for the June 3 kidnapping of four
Russian Embassy workers. The two separate postings could not be authenticated,
but they appeared on a Web site known for publishing messages from insurgent
groups in Iraq.
Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman, when asked about the claim by the Shura
Council that it was holding the soldiers, said: "We have no independent
confirmation of that report."
Besides the troops, the U.S. military said Monday 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 U.S. 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 U.S. servicemen wounded, said
military spokesman Maj. Gen. William Caldwell.
The area is among the most dangerous in Iraq for U.S. troops and mostly
populated by minority Sunni Arabs, the backbone of Iraq's 3-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, has told The Associated Press that he witnessed
seven masked gunmen seize the soldiers near Youssifiyah, about 12 miles south of
Baghdad.
Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said Sunday that insurgents had taken
the soldiers prisoner. "Hopefully they would be found and released as soon as
possible," he said on CNN's "Late Edition."
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said there was "great concern" over the
missing soldiers.
"The American military has made very clear that they are going to do
everything possible ... to try and find them," she told reporters.
