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Missing Soldiers Found Dead In Iraq
Pfc. Thomas L. Tucker, left, 25, of Madras, Ore., and Pfc. Kristian Menchaca, 23, of Houston were apparently kidnapped following an attack by Iraqi insurgents outside the town of Yusufiyah, south of Baghdad.
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On Tuesday, the U.S. military issued a statement saying it had killed 15 "terrorists" and detained three suspects during simultaneous raids near Baqubah aimed at pursuing a suspected senior member of al-Qaeda in Iraq. After being fired on from a rooftop, U.S. forces shot back and killed nine armed insurgents, and gunfire from supporting aircraft killed two others in a nearby building, the statement said.
The raids yielded 10 AK-47 assault rifles, a shotgun, a pistol and a crate of explosives, military officials said.
A different account of the incident was provided by witnesses, family members of the dead and a Sunni Muslim member of the Iraqi parliament, Mohammed al-Diani, who called the raids a "barbaric bombing" of civilians and children. Diani called on the Iraqi cabinet to investigate.
Hadi al-Azzawi, a press officer for a human rights organization in Baghdad who said he witnessed the incident, said two of the dead were young boys, ages 10 and 12, and a police officer denied any weapons were present at the scene.
When asked about the differing account, Caldwell denied there were any civilian casualties in what he described as "an extremely long firefight."
Violence continued in Baghdad despite efforts to tighten security. Four explosions detonated within an hour Tuesday morning in and around Baghdad, killing 13 people and wounding 39, said Col. Adil Saeed al-Samarai of the Interior Ministry.
In the southern city of Basra, a suicide bomber blew himself up inside a home for the elderly, killing five people and wounding 15, said Samarai.
Special correspondents Saad al-Izzi, Bassam Sebti, Naseer Nouri and K.I. Ibrahim contributed to this report.
