Spokesman: 'With each passing day... the likelihood of soldiers being found alive is less'

Top: Soldiers from the 10th Mountain Division search near Yusifiyah today. Below: Joseph Anzack, Byron Fouty and Alex Jimenez were listed as 'Duty Status: Whereabouts Unknown' following the May 12th attack. Earlier General Petraeus, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq said in an interview that he believes he knows who abducted the three soldiers missing, and that as of Friday morning he believed at least two of them were still alive.

The search for the troops who went missing after a May 12 ambush is grinding down U.S. forces already strained by the push to restore calm in and around Baghdad.

Firefights erupt daily as troops search a 135-square-mile area south of the capital. Roadside bombs hit armored Humvees. The troops have taken to walking but the fields are heavily mined. Still, the military insists it won't quit until it finds the missing men, or knows what happened to them...

Bright said most of the troops have lost weight, many as much as 12 pounds, as Iraq's weather has climbed above 100. The searchers spend hours patrolling only to return to base after the mess hall closes.

Bright was forced to cancel a rest day for one platoon and send it out searching in place of the company that was hit by the roadside bomb on Saturday...

"I choose to remain positive, but with each passing day with no evidence of life the likelihood of soldiers being found alive is less," Lt. Col. Randy Martin, a spokesman for troops searching for the soldiers, said in an e-mail Sunday.

Read the rest at ABC News

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