Baghdad, Iraq – More than 8,000 U.S. and Iraqi troops scoured villages south of Baghdad on Monday for two soldiers missing since an attack four days ago, as an insurgent group linked to al-Qaeda in Iraq claimed that it had abducted the Army privates.
The claim was made in an Internet posting by the Mujaheddin al-Shura Council and could not be verified. Maj. Todd Breasseale, a Marine spokesman in Baghdad, said that the soldiers’ whereabouts remained unknown and that “there is no indication that any reports of a kidnapping are authentic.”
The military identified the missing soldiers as Pfc. Kristian Menchaca, 23, of Houston and Pfc. Thomas L. Tucker, 25, of Madras, Ore. They were attacked at a checkpoint near Yusufiyah, south of Baghdad. A third soldier, Spec. David J. Babineau, 25, of Springfield, Mass., was killed in the incident.
The abduction claim comes less than two weeks after the killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, in a U.S. airstrike.
The organization has issued a series of Internet statements vowing revenge.
Among the questions raised by the attack in Yusufiyah is how three U.S. soldiers became isolated from a larger force. U.S. soldiers generally travel in convoys of at least two Humvees carrying several soldiers, particularly in areas with a known insurgent presence.
While some news reports have suggested other vehicles and personnel were present during the attack, Lt. Col. Jonathan Withington, a military spokesman in Baghdad, said there were no other U.S. troops present. “Our reporting indicates it was a three-man security team that was attacked,” he said.
Troops involved in the hunt for Menchaca and Tucker have searched and cleared 12 villages, killing three insurgents and detaining 34 others, Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV, spokesman for U.S. forces in Iraq, said in a statement.
Tucker and Menchacha are members of the 1st Battalion of the 502nd Infantry Regiment of the 2nd Brigade, 101st Airborne Division, based at Fort Campbell, Ky.
A representative of the Tucker family in Madras referred calls to the public-affairs office of the Oregon National Guard. Phone calls to a spokeswoman there were not returned.
Menchaca’s wife, Christina, 18, was in Big Spring, Texas, with her family but was not taking calls, a representative said.
The couple married in September and had met through Christina’s brother, who is also in the Army, said the missing soldier’s mother, Maria Guadalupe Vasquez of Brownsville, Texas. Menchaca was deployed a month after he was married.
“The sergeants came and told us he was missing and that they were searching land and sea for him,” said Vasquez. “They told us to pray. They said we just needed to pray for him.”
An Internet message purportedly posted under the name of the Mujaheddin al-Shura Council – an umbrella organization of insurgent groups including al-Qaeda in Iraq – claimed the group had apprehended the soldiers and mocked U.S. efforts to find them. It did not name the soldiers or provide any evidence it held them.
In a second statement released Monday, the group claimed to be holding four Russian diplomats abducted in Baghdad in early June. Another Russian Embassy employee died in the attack. The group demanded the withdrawal of Russian forces from Chechnya and the release of “our brothers and sisters in Russian prisons.”
In Washington, leading Democrats called Monday for U.S. troops to begin withdrawing from Iraq this year.
Though they avoided setting a firm timetable for withdrawal, they contended that the Bush administration’s open-ended commitment to Iraq would only prevent the Iraqis from moving forward on their own.
Coming the week after partisan and often angry House debate over the war, the Senate proposal, a nonbinding resolution, was carefully worded to avoid any appearance that the Democrats were “cutting and running,” as their position has been depicted by Republicans.
“The administration’s policy to date – that we’ll be there for as long as Iraq needs us – will result in Iraq’s depending upon us longer,” said Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, the senior Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, who has been designated by the Democratic leadership to present the party’s strategy on Iraq.
“Three and a half years into the conflict, we should tell the Iraqis that the American security blanket is not permanent.”
The resolution was cobbled together by moderate Democrats trying to smooth over differences within the party’s ranks. The minority leadership has tried to distance itself from a proposal by Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., setting a mandatory deadline for U.S. combat troops to be out of Iraq by the end of this year, a limit that Kerry modified only marginally on Monday.
The measure will be debated this week as an amendment to a military policy bill.
The New York Times and The Washington Post contributed to this report.
