Saturday, May 19, 2007

Petraeus: 'Somebody’s given us the names... that participated in it and told us how they did it' --- 'At least two... probably alive'

Above: Jospeh Anzack, Byron Fouty and Alex Jimenez were listed as 'Duty Status: Whereabouts Unknown' following Saturday's attack.

BAGHDAD, Iraq — The commander of U.S. forces in Iraq said he believes he knows who abducted the three soldiers missing since a May 12 attack, and that as of Friday morning he believed at least two of them were still alive.

"We know who that guy is," Gen. David Petraeus said in a May 18 interview with Army Times. "He’s sort of an affiliate of al-Qaida. He’s the big player down in that area. We’ve tangled with him before"...

"Somebody’s given us the names of all the guys that participated in it and told us how they did it, and all the rest of that stuff," he said. "Now, we have to verify that at some point in time, but it sounds spot on. We’ve had all kinds of tips down there. We just tragically haven’t found the individuals. But on the other hand, they haven’t been able to smuggle out, at least to my knowledge, the traditional video."

Petraeus said he didn’t know for sure if the three missing soldiers were alive or dead. "As of this morning, we thought there were at least two that were probably still alive," he said. "At one point in time there was a sense that one of them might have died, but again we just don’t know."

Read the rest at Army Times

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