Update: Al-Qaeda Group Linked to the Two American Soldiers Abducted

If we are to believe the all too known principle that one never escapes what one fears, then we might label the situation of the two US soldiers, who mysteriously disappeared during the weekend in Iraq, exactly that, from the point of view of the Bush administration.


According to al-Qaeda linked rebel faction, calling themselves The Mujahedeen Shura Council, which was described as being a sort of higher political structure many other Iraqi minor groups are connected to, the two GIs, Privates Thomas Lowell Tucker, 25, and Kristian Menchaca, 23, are in their possession.

The announcement was made yesterday on an Internet website which is known to propagate such messages from terrorist organizations. They mysterious part of this story is that the organization did not provide any footage, pictures or audio messages of the two soldiers in order to prove they are still alive. Nevertheless, the group promised it would take its revenge on the killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

The group also claimed responsibility for the abduction of four Russian embassy diplomats on June 3rd, the reason being a part of their revenge on the Western world for cutting the life of al-Zarqawi, as well.

Unfortunately, the authenticity of the two messages could not be confirmed or infirmed, since no additional information was available on that matter. Bryan Whitman, a spokesman for the Pentagon stated: "We have no independent confirmation of that report" enlarging the aura of mystery of the state the two American soldiers are in.

According to US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the US army will try its best to find the soldiers, as it had already mounted quite extensive search-and-rescue operations of the two GIs, ever since they went missing: "The American military has made very clear that they are going to do everything possible . . . to try and find them".

According to Reuters, a report was issued not long ago by a senior Iraqi Defense Ministry official, Major General Abdul Aziz Mohammed, which stated that the bodies of the two soldiers were found near an electricity plant in Yusufiya, the area in which they were kidnapped. The report did not mention when they were killed, nor when they were found. Nevertheless, their bodies bore acute torture markings.