Al Qaeda group claims abduction of US soldiers

Some 8000 US troops are searching for the missing soldiers. Picture / Reuters.

BAGHDAD - A group linked to al Qaeda in Iraq has said it abducted two US soldiers, as thousands of US troops scour the countryside for the missing men.

"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."

Some 8,000 US and Iraqi troops, supported by aircraft, have been hunting for the two missing soldiers, who have not been seen since an attack on Friday night on a checkpoint south of Baghdad in which a fellow soldier was killed.

"The American military has made very clear that they are going to do everything possible - I think they've said air, land and sea - to try and find them," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in Washington.

The missing soldiers have been identified as Private Thomas Lowell Tucker, 25, from Madras, Oregon and Private Kristian Menchaca, 23, from Houston, Texas.

The US military is still looking for Keith Maupin, the only other missing soldier. He was abducted on April 9, 2004, when his convoy was ambushed in Baghdad.

Al Qaeda vowed to hit back after its leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, was killed in a US air strike on June 7. The group has killed several foreign hostages, some by beheading.

The Mujahideen Shura Council, made up of al Qaeda and other militant groups, said it was also holding four Russian diplomats 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 in an attack on June 3 in Baghdad.

Security

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki 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 towards 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 like Yusufiya, where the two US soldiers went missing.

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.

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 towards 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 withdraw Japan's troops, based in Muthanna.

Meanwhile, in Baghdad, prosecutors in Saddam's trial asked for the death penalty for the former president and his 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. A US official said a verdict was expected by mid-September.

- REUTERS