Missing US soldiers found dead in Iraq - reports

Two US soldiers missing in Iraq have been found dead, news reports said today.

Reports said the announcement was made by a spokesman for Iraq’s Defence Ministry.

Ahmed Khalaf Falah, a farmer who said he witnessed the abduction of the Americans on Friday, said the two soldiers had been captured by seven masked gunmen who were heavily armed during the attack near Youssifiyah, about 12 miles south of Baghdad.

The town is in the so-called Triangle of Death, a predominantly Sunni region that has been the scene of frequent ambushes of US soldiers and Iraqi troops.

Yesterday, the US military said it had intensified its search for the missing soldiers, with more than 8,000 Iraqi and US troops combing the volatile area south of Baghdad where the men were attacked.

Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, a spokesman for US forces in Iraq, also said the military had killed three suspected insurgents and detained 34 others in fighting that left seven US servicemen wounded during the search that began on Friday evening.

Fighter jets, unmanned aerial vehicles and dive teams had been deployed to find the two men who disappeared in an attack on their checkpoint that left one of their comrades dead, Caldwell said.

“We have surged intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance platforms and employed planes, boats, helicopters and UAVs to ensure the most thorough search possible on the ground, in the air and in the water,” Caldwell said.