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   Police: Masked gunmen abducted U.S. soldiers
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Rhune
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Police: Masked gunmen abducted U.S. soldiers
« on: Jun 18th, 2006, 6:17pm »
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Police: Masked gunmen abducted U.S. soldiers
Two soldiers reported missing after insurgent attack Friday
 
Sunday, June 18, 2006; Posted: 12:08 p.m. EDT (16:08 GMT)  
 
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Police in Iraq told CNN on Sunday at least four or five masked gunmen seized the two American soldiers who had been reported missing after an insurgent checkpoint attack near Yusufiya on Friday night.
 
Police sources gleaned the information from eyewitnesses, who told police they saw gunmen in two cars whisk away the soldiers.
 
U.S. troops immediately embarked a hunt for the soldiers, and continue to scour the region on Sunday.
 
Also, a U.S. military official said one vehicle was found abandoned with blood in the back and boot prints were spotted on the ground.
 
Yusufiya, about 30 miles south of Baghdad, is in a dangerous area of northern Babil province known as the "Triangle of Death." Insurgents have been known to hit checkpoints in the area with small arms fire.
 
Another U.S. soldier was killed in the checkpoint attack.
 
Earlier, The New York Times reported in its Sunday edition that Iraqi witnesses said they saw the two U.S. soldiers being led away by masked insurgents to a pair of cars.
 
"There are intelligence indicators [that] they may have been captured alive rather than killed," a senior military official told CNN on Saturday night.  
 
The paper cited Iraqis in the area, who were interviewed by telephone from Baghdad, as saying the attack appeared to have been intended to lure some soldiers away and separate the force.  
 
The paper quoted Hassan Abdul Hadi, who said he was tending to his date palms and apple trees when he heard gunfire and explosions.
 
Hadi said that he walked to the road and saw an American Humvee, the Times reported.
 
"I was shocked to see the Humvee -- nothing seemed to be wrong with it," Hadi told the Times. "Then I heard the men shouting 'God is great!' and I saw that they had taken the Americans with them. The gunmen took them and drove away."
 
U.S. military reinforcements
When the checkpoint along a canal was attacked at about 7:55 p.m. (11:55 a.m. ET) Friday, soldiers at an nearby traffic control point heard an explosion and small-arms fire, Maj. Gen. William Caldwell said Saturday.  
 
Reinforcements arrived within 15 minutes and found one soldier dead and the other two missing, the general said.  
 
The New York Times cited witnesses as saying insurgents had been firing at the checkpoint from fruit groves along the road, and that when Americans gave chase in two Humvees the insurgents retreated into the groves.
 
At that point seven or eight guerrillas attacked the checkpoint from another direction, the paper reported the witnesses as saying, adding that a team of Americans arrived minutes after the two soldiers were taken away.
 
The names of the two soldiers are being withheld pending family notification.
 
'We never stop looking'
The search for them has involved helicopters, unmanned aerial vehicles and divers, who have scoured the canals and the nearby Euphrates River.
 
Three raids were conducted Friday night and another Saturday morning, Caldwell said, and coalition troops have enlisted the help of local leaders and civilians.
 
"We are using all available assets," Caldwell said. "We never stop looking for our service members until their status is definitively determined, and we continue to pray for their safe return."
 
Caldwell also highlighted the case of another soldier missing in Iraq, saying the military is still looking for Sgt. Keith Matthew Maupin, who disappeared in April 2004 after his convoy was attacked near Baghdad International Airport.  
 
Like the two soldiers who went missing Friday, Maupin's initial status was "whereabouts unknown." The military changed the Ohio soldier's status to "missing-captured" after the Arabic-language TV network Al-Jazeera showed a videotape of Maupin being held captive by insurgents.
 
Two months later, Al-Jazeera said it had received a videotape and statement from insurgents who claimed they killed Maupin, but U.S. officials were unable to identify him. His status remained "missing-captured."
 
Maupin's mother said her thoughts are with the families of the two soldiers missing after Friday's attack
 
"It's like reliving our first notice of when Matt's whereabouts (were) unknown," Carolyn Maupin said. "I can relate to the parents and I've been praying for them, so hopefully they will find them very, very soon, because I can relate to how they feel."
 
CNN Producer Mohammed Tawfeeq in Baghdad and Pentagon Correspondent Barbara Starr contributed to this report
 
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Re: Police: Masked gunmen abducted U.S. soldiers
« Reply #1 on: Jun 18th, 2006, 6:17pm »
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I'll keep these poor boys in my thoughts and hope for their safe return.  Sad
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Re: Police: Masked gunmen abducted U.S. soldiers
« Reply #2 on: Jun 18th, 2006, 11:33pm »
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First off, I'm wondering why this isn't posted in THE NEWS Section.
 
The ambush and capture of U.S. Soldiers in a war zone is hardly a topic for political discussion even if some of our members disagree with the basic decision of the U.S. being in Iraq.
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Re: Police: Masked gunmen abducted U.S. soldiers
« Reply #3 on: Jun 19th, 2006, 10:19am »
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By accident, actually!  I had thought I posted this one in the news section.  I'll move it now.
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Re: Police: Masked gunmen abducted U.S. soldiers
« Reply #4 on: Jun 20th, 2006, 1:13pm »
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News has broke this morning here in the U.S. that unfortunately these two soldier's bodies have been located.  
From first accounts it appears that they were tortued and then killed.   Executed.
 
It also appears that they were left in an area where they would be found and the surrounding area was boobytrapped with explosives so as to kill/injure/maim any U.S. Forces when they came to recover the bodies.
 
 
 
. . . . . as far as I'm concerned, they can take that "investigation" into those American GI's reportedly killing "innocent civillians" after they were ambushed . . . .  
 
. . . . and stick it where the sun don't shine!!    
 
If the innocent "civillians" of Iraq don't want to cooperate with the Americans, and if they harbor or just look the other way when the terrorist insurgents use their homes and neighborhoods as "cover" for their attacks, then they had better either get the hell out and head for the damn desert . . . . or expect that they might wind up as collateral damage.  
 
My best advice to them is:  Either you be part of the solution, or you may wind up being part of the problem.
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Re: Police: Masked gunmen abducted U.S. soldiers
« Reply #5 on: Jun 20th, 2006, 4:03pm »
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In the same token we can't just go hog wild either and randomly shoot anyone who might or might not have been involved.  There has to be some kind of middle ground between civilized and animals, even in war.  Not, that I'm saying that's what these guys did, don't get me wrong, but I think there are a small amount of people who will take advantage of the chaos and vulnerability of the people around them and manipulate a situation into something grotesque, that's why in war there are still rules and commands and people in charge, etc.  
 
I think many of the things soldiers were accused of, or were forced into a situation they had to be a part of were terrible, but necessary things.  Then there are the soldiers who went out of their way to create greater atrocities like rape.  Those are the people I am talking about, not the ones who were forced to shoot a child because if they didn't the child would shoot them.
 
Now, that said, I think that many of the "eye-witnesses" of Iraq have proven themselves to be biased and with an agenda against our soldiers and their word is not proof alone of anything.  The soldiers charged in the attack on the village that's been in the news deserve fair legal representation in their trial.  Even the grossest of serial killers are provided the best legal representation they can get, and our sodiers deserve no less.
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Re: Police: Masked gunmen abducted U.S. soldiers
« Reply #6 on: Jun 20th, 2006, 9:28pm »
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What a horrible outcome.  I hope for  the same fate to those that committed this atrocity.
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Re: Police: Masked gunmen abducted U.S. soldiers
« Reply #7 on: Jun 22nd, 2006, 11:17am »
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I saw this in our local news on my way to school today. (we have tv on buses)
 
Was very shocked, sad to hear that this had happened.
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Re: Police: Masked gunmen abducted U.S. soldiers
« Reply #8 on: Jun 22nd, 2006, 11:44am »
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My heart goes out to their family and friends.  Cry
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Re: Police: Masked gunmen abducted U.S. soldiers
« Reply #9 on: Jun 22nd, 2006, 9:19pm »
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Families get word of soldiers' brutal deaths
 
Thursday, June 22, 2006; Posted: 6:09 p.m. EDT (22:09 GMT)  
 
BROWNSVILLE, Texas (AP) -- Relatives of two soldiers who disappeared in Iraq during an insurgent attack comforted each other Thursday after the military confirmed two brutalized bodies found this week were the missing men.
 
The bodies of Army Pfc. Kristian Menchaca of Houston and Pfc. Thomas Tucker of Madras, Oregon, were sent to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware for DNA testing.
 
"They have confirmed that it is Kristian," his aunt, Hermelinda Gomez, said before returning inside the house where relatives gathered to comfort the soldier's mother, Maria Vasquez.
 
In Oregon, the phone rang with the news at 1:30 a.m., Oregon National Guard spokeswoman Kay Fristad said.
 
"It's been extremely difficult throughout," Fristad said. "There was always a shred of hope there."
 
One and possibly both young men were tortured and beheaded, a U.S. military official said. The military did not confirm whether the soldiers died from wounds suffered in the attack Friday or were kidnapped and later killed.
 
The Army said that Menchaca, Tucker and Spc. David J. Babineau, 25, of Springfield, Massachusetts, were left alone while other vehicles in their patrol inspected traffic, contradicting earlier reports that the three Humvees became separated under fire. Babineau was killed in the initial attack.
 
Julieta Vasquez, Menchaca's aunt, said the family was angry that the men had been left alone by their better-trained colleagues.
 
"We're mad at the Army," she said. "My nephew and the other solider, they were alone."
 
Felipa Gomez, Menchaca's 16-year-old cousin, said the body was expected home within a few days, and that Menchaca's wife, 18-year-old Christina Menchaca, of Big Spring, would attend the funeral planned in Brownsville.
 
Menchaca's close-knit Mexican-American family described him as a sweet, quiet young man who joined the military last year and deployed to Iraq within months.
 
Tucker had graduated from high school in 1999 and worked a variety of construction jobs before he decided to join the Army last summer. His friends said he liked to angle for catfish in the Prineville Reservoir and hunt deer in the Ochoco Mountains.
 
The three men were assigned to the 1st Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade, 101st Airborne Division from Fort Campbell, Kentucky.
 
Copyright 2006 The Associated Press.  
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