DUBAI, 5 June 2007 — An Al-Qaeda front group said in a video released yesterday that it had killed all three US soldiers whom it captured last month in Iraq triggering a massive search operation by American and Iraqi forces.
The video by the Al-Qaeda-linked group — obtained by AFP from the Washington-based SITE Institute, which studies violent extremist groups — shows the photo identifications of Private Byron Fouty and Specialist Alex Jiminez.
The two soldiers were captured along with a third, Private First Class Joseph Anzack, on May 12 south of Baghdad.
The US military said late last month that Private Anzack’s body was found floating in the Euphrates river and it was still searching for the other two soldiers.
A voice on the video released by the insurgent group added that it would not deliver the bodies of the two soldiers.
Inside Iraq, Iraqi Army soldiers shot dead an Al-Qaeda cell leader yesterday in a clash inside one of Baghdad’s historic Sunni quarters, military spokesman Brig. Gen. Qassim Atta said.
“He was from Al-Qaeda, they called him the ‘Governor of Adhamiyah,’” Atta told AFP. In another incident of violence, gunmen murdered a Catholic priest and his three assistants in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul.
