Baghdad, Iraq – As a massive hunt for three missing U.S. soldiers continued into its third day Monday, a front group for al-Qaeda in Iraq that claims to have captured them warned the U.S. military to stop searching, calling it “a venture in vain.”
The group suggested the abductions were to avenge the rape and killing of a 14-year-old girl in the same area and abuses committed by U.S. troops at Abu Ghraib and other prisons.
“We say to you that what search for your soldiers you may do will not lead you to anything except fatigue, and setbacks for you. Your soldiers are firmly in our hands,” the Islamic State of Iraq said in a statement posted on insurgent websites.
“Remember what you had done in this area, when you violated our sister Abeer,” the statement added, referring to Abeer Qassim al-Janabi. Five soldiers were charged in the March 2006 murders of Abeer, her parents and her younger sister. Three soldiers have pleaded guilty in the case.
Also Monday, six U.S. soldiers died in Iraq, the U.S. military reported. Four were killed in three attacks in Baghdad and southeast of the capital, and one in Anbar province. The sixth soldier died of noncombat causes, the military said.
That raised the number of American service members who have died this month to 47.
U.S. military officials also said Monday for the first time that they believed fighters linked to al-Qaeda in Iraq had kidnapped the three soldiers.
The soldiers disappeared after a predawn ambush on their patrol Saturday, 12 miles west of the town of Mahmudiyah, south of Baghdad, that killed four U.S. soldiers and an Iraqi army interpreter.
The Islamic State of Iraq, an umbrella group of Sunni insurgents said to have been created by al-Qaeda in Iraq, asserted Sunday that it had abducted the soldiers but has yet to show proof.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
