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Al Qaeda says has abducted two US soldiers
« on: Jun 19th, 2006, 10:35am » |
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Al Qaeda says has abducted two US soldiers
By Michael Georgy and Ibon Villelabeitia
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A group linked to Iraq's al Qaeda said on Monday it had abducted two U.S. soldiers south of Baghdad, according to a statement posted on the Internet.
"Your brothers in the military wing of the Mujahideen Shura Council kidnapped two American soldiers near Yusufiya," the Sunni Arab group said. "We will provide you with more details about the incident in the next coming days."
The U.S. military said it was taking the statement seriously.
"We don't have any proof whether it is true or not but the statement is being taken seriously. We will never leave them out there," said Lieutenant Michelle Lunato, a military spokeswoman.
In Baghdad's fortified Green Zone, Saddam Hussein, whose loyalists make up much of the Sunni insurgency, listened to the chief prosecutor in his trial demand that he be sentenced to death for the killing of 148 Shi'ites in the 1980s.
The al Qaeda statement came as 8,000 U.S. and Iraqi forces searched for the two U.S. soldiers, who went missing on Friday after an attack on a checkpoint that killed another soldier.
The missing soldiers have been identified as Private Thomas Lowell Tucker, 25, from Madras, Oregon and Private Kristian Menchaca, 23, from Houston, Texas.
Al Qaeda vowed to hit back after its leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, was killed in a U.S. air strike on June 7.
The Mujahideen Shura Council also said it was holding four Russian "diplomats" hostage in Iraq and gave Moscow 48 hours to pull out from Chechnya and free Muslim prisoners, according to an Internet statement.
The group said it had abducted the four and killed a fifth Russian. The group appeared to be referring to an attack on June 3 in which a Russian embassy employee was shot dead in Baghdad and four others were abducted.
SOUTHERN HANDOVER
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, seeking to show Iraqis that his new government is taking charge, said Iraqi forces would take control of the country's southernmost province from a British-led multinational force in July.
Maliki hailed it as a first step toward Iraqi forces taking responsibility for their own security.
But Muthanna province is relatively quiet and is much easier to hand over than the violence-racked oil port city of Basra to the east or Sunni Arab insurgent strongholds further north such as Yusufiya, where the two U.S. troops went missing on Friday.
U.S. troops backed by tanks were seen moving through the southern parts of Ramadi, a Sunni Arab insurgent stronghold that U.S forces have always struggled to control.
Seven tanks rumbled along Masarif Street and July 17 Street, a Reuters witness said.
Shops were shuttered and most residents stayed home, fearing a U.S. offensive on the scale of the one that inflicted heavy destruction and loss of life in nearby Falluja in 2004.
Transferring security to Iraq's fledgling security forces is a key part of London's and Washington's plans to withdraw their 137,000 troops, but the insurgency remains strong.
Muthanna would be the first of Iraq's 15 provinces outside of the relatively peaceful Kurdish north to come under full Iraqi control.
A spokesman for British Prime Minister Tony Blair cautioned that the handover of control in Muthanna did not mean British, Australian and Japanese troops were pulling out immediately.
"It does mean there will be a gradual transition to the Iraqis taking control ... This is a significant step toward Iraq controlling its own destiny," he told reporters in London.
Japan's Kyodo news agency said Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi would announce a plan on Tuesday to pull Japan's troops out of southern Iraq.
In Baghdad, prosecutors in Saddam's trial also asked for the death penalty to be imposed on the former president's half brother, Barzan al-Tikriti, his former vice president, Taha Yassin Ramadan, and former Revolutionary Court judge Awad Hamed al-Bander for crimes against humanity.
Saddam and seven co-accused are on trial for their alleged roles in the killing of 148 Shi'ites after an assassination attempt against Saddam in the village of Dujail in 1982.
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