Missing soldiers reportedly found dead

An Iraq Defense Ministry spokesman says two U.S. soldiers missing since Friday have been found dead, Reuters reports. U.S. military authorities in Baghdad told CNN they could not confirm the report. Pfc. Thomas Lowell Tucker, 25, of Madras, Oregon, and Pfc. Kristian Menchaca, 23, of Houston, Texas, went missing after an attack on a checkpoint.



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Missing US soldiers found dead

From correspondents in BaghdadJune 20, 2006

TWO US soldiers who went missing south of Baghdad last week were killed and their bodies found in an area where a group linked to al-Qaeda said it had abducted them, an Iraqi defence official said today.

"The two soldiers were killed and they were found in Yusufiyah near an electricity plant," Major General Abdul Aziz Mohammed told a news conference in Baghdad.

"Unfortunately their bodies show that they had been tortured and then killed viciously."

He did not say when the soldiers were killed nor when their bodies were found.

The US military had launched an intense search for the men involving 8000 US and Iraqi troops.

The Mujahideen Shura Council said on Monday it had kidnapped the soldiers - Private Thomas Lowell Tucker, 25, from Madras, Oregon and Private Kristian Menchaca, 23, from Houston, Texas.

The two went missing at dusk on Friday after an ambush at a checkpoint in Yusufiya, a town in an area south of Baghdad some Iraqis call the "Triangle of Death, which is an al-Qaeda stronghold. Another soldier was killed in the attack.

The deaths dealt a blow to the US military after it killed the al-Qaeda leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, in an air strike on June 7.

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