An al-Qaida-linked group said Monday it was holding captive two US privates, one from Texas and the other from Oregon, and taunted the US military for failing to find the soldiers despite a search involving more than 8,000 Iraqi and American troops.

Ed Bockoven hangs balloon for missing US Army Pfc. Thomas Lowell Tucker, Monday, June 19, 2006, in Madras, Ore. [AP]

The Mujahedeen Shura Council, an umbrella organization for a variety of insurgent factions led by al-Qaida in Iraq, offered no video, identification cards or other evidence to prove that they have the Americans. The group had vowed to seek revenge for the June 7 killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, in a US airstrike.

The council also said it was responsible for the June 3 kidnapping of four Russian Embassy workers. The two separate postings could not be authenticated, but they appeared on a Web site known for publishing messages from insurgent groups in Iraq.

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman, when asked about the claim by the Shura Council that it was holding the soldiers, said: "We have no independent confirmation of that report."

Besides the troops, the US military said Monday it has deployed fighter jets, helicopters, unmanned drones, boats and dive teams in the hunt for the soldiers, who disappeared Friday in a region south of Baghdad known as the "Triangle of Death."

Residents said the Americans slapped a 3 p.m.-to-6 a.m. curfew in the area and were conducting house-to-house raids, arresting anyone found not to be a permanent resident. They said US and Iraqi soldiers were demanding to see each family's food ration card, which lists the number of beneficiaries, so as to single out outsiders.

Troops searching for the soldiers killed three suspected insurgents and detained 34 in fighting that also left seven US servicemen wounded, said military spokesman Maj. Gen. William Caldwell.

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