Iraq Official: U.S. Soldier's Bodies Found

Thomas Tucker of Oregon is one of two soldiers whose bodies were recovered, say Iraqi officials Photo Courtesy: Oregon National Guard

(BAGHDAD, Iraq) - The bodies of two U.S. soldiers have been found near where the men went missing, a senior Iraqi military official said Tuesday, but the U.S. military said it could not confirm the report. Maj. Gen. Abdul-Aziz Mohammed said the bodies of Army Pfc. Kristian Menchaca, 23, of Houston, and Army Pfc. Thomas Lowell Tucker, 25, of Madras, Ore., were found on a street near a power plant in the town of Youssifiyah, just south of Baghdad. U.S. Maj. Doug Powell said he could not confirm the report. The soldiers came under attack Friday at a traffic checkpoint near Youssifiyah. A third soldier, Spc. David J. Babineau, 25, of Springfield, Mass., was killed in the attack. All three were from the 101st Airborne Division based at Fort Campbell, Ky. An umbrella group that includes al-Qaida in Iraq claimed in a statement Monday that it had kidnapped the two U.S. soldiers, but it did not name them. "The news is going to be heartbreaking for my family," Ken MacKenzie, Menchaca's uncle, told NBC's "Today" show. He said the United States should have paid a ransom from money seized from Saddam Hussein. "I think the U.S. was too slow to react to this. Because the U.S. did not have a plan in place, my nephew has paid with his life." More than 8,000 Iraqi and American troops searched for the missing soldiers on Monday. Earlier Tuesday, a parked minivan exploded in a busy outdoor market in a Baghdad slum, killing four people and wounding 16, police said. Elsewhere, a suicide bomber wearing an explosives belt blew himself up in a home for the elderly in the southern city of Basra, killing two people and wounding three. The minivan bombing occurred as people were shopping in the rundown district of Sadr City, a sprawling Shiite district in eastern Baghdad. Police Col. Hassan Chalob said four civilians were killed and seven cars were left charred. The area has been targeted by attackers in the past. Bombs exploded in two markets there on March 12, killing at least 44 people. The motive of the attack on the elderly home was unclear and an investigation was under way, police Lt. Col. Karim al-Zaida said. Two women were killed. Tensions have been worsening in the Shiite-dominated area of Basra, Iraq's second-largest city, which is about 340 miles southeast of Baghdad. Britain has about 8,000 soldiers in the city. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki declared a state of emergency there late last month, but it has failed to quell the rampant violence as rival Shiite militias fight each other for power. Ahmed Khalaf Falah, a farmer, has told The Associated Press that he witnessed seven masked gunmen seize the soldiers near Youssifiyah, about 12 miles south of Baghdad, in a region known as the "Triangle of Death." The Mujahedeen Shura Council, an umbrella organization for a variety of insurgent factions led by al-Qaida in Iraq, offered no video, identification cards or other evidence to prove that they had the Americans. The group had vowed to seek revenge for the June 7 killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, in a U.S. airstrike. The council also said it was responsible for the June 3 kidnapping of four Russian Embassy workers. The two separate postings could not be authenticated, but they appeared on a Web site known for publishing messages from insurgent groups in Iraq. The area is among the most dangerous in Iraq for U.S. troops and mostly populated by minority Sunni Arabs, the backbone of Iraq's 3-year-old insurgency. The two soldiers were missing after an attack on their traffic checkpoint that left one of their comrades dead. Kidnappings of U.S. service members have been rare since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, despite the presence of about 130,000 forces. U.S. troops patrol only in convoys. Foot patrols, while common in parts of Iraq during 2003 and 2004, have become rare because of roadside bombs, snipers and ambushes. The last U.S. soldier to be captured was Sgt. Keith M. Maupin of Batavia, Ohio, who was taken on April 9, 2004 after insurgents ambushed his fuel convoy. Two months later, a tape on Al-Jazeera purported to show a captive U.S. soldier shot, but the Army ruled it was inconclusive. Six soldiers, including Pvt. Jessica Lynch, were captured in an ambush in southern Iraq in the early days of the war — March 23, 2003. Lynch was rescued April 1, 2003, the others 12 days later.