US recover bodies of missing soldiers
US forces today recovered the bodies of two American soldiers reported captured by insurgents last week.
US Major General William Caldwell said the bodies were found late yesterday by US troops near Youssifiyah, where they went missing on Friday, and recovered early today.
He blamed the delay in retrieving the bodies on explosives found around the area and suggested the bodies were booby-trapped.
An Iraqi defence ministry official said earlier that the men were tortured and “killed in a barbaric way.”
Al-Qaida in Iraq claimed responsibility for killing the soldiers, and said the successor to terror leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi had “slaughtered” them, according to a web statement that could not be authenticated.
The language in the statement suggested the men were beheaded.
Caldwell said the remains were believed to be those of Pfc. Kristian Menchaca (aged 23) of Houston, and Pfc. Thomas Tucker (aged 25) of Madras, Oregan, but he said the cause of death was “undeterminable at this point,” and DNA tests would be done in the United States to confirm the identities.
