Al-Qaida says new leader killed kidnapped GIs

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Claims of kidnapping, killing
On Tuesday, after Iraqi officials disclosed that the bodies were found, the Shura Council posted another Web statement, saying al-Zarqawi’s successor had “slaughtered” the soldiers. The language in the statement, which could not be authenticated, suggested the group was saying the men were beheaded.

“With God Almighty’s blessing, Abu Hamza al-Muhajer carried out the verdict of the Islamic court” calling for the soldiers’ slaying, the statement said.

The U.S. military has identified al-Muhajer as an Egyptian associate of al-Zarqawi also known as Abu Ayyub al-Masri. If confirmed, the killings would be the first acts of violence attributed to al-Muhajer since he was named the new leader of al-Qaida in Iraq in a June 12 Web message by the group.

Al-Zarqawi made al-Qaida in Iraq notorious for beheadings and was believed to have killed two American captives himself — Nicholas Berg in April 2004 and Eugene Armstrong in September 2004. A dozen Americans are still missing in Iraq, Caldwell said.

Relatives upset that Iraq broke news
The families of the two soldiers were upset that first word of the gruesome discovery came from Iraqi authorities.

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Relative reacts
June 20: The cousin of Army Pfc. Kristian Menchaca, believed killed in Iraq, reacts to his death.
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Mario Vasquez, 48, Menchaca’s uncle, said he was watching television news reports Tuesday morning, listening to a Pentagon spokeswoman say the two kidnapped soldiers’ families would be notified before anyone else that they had been found when he got a call from his niece, Sylvia Grice. She told him that the media was reporting that the bodies had been found.

“It’s very upsetting to me that they would give you details of the torture, of the beheading,” he said. “Who tells the media when we don’t know before they do. Why is the media doing that, saying what they did to them?”

Grice, 37, who was Menchaca’s cousin, said the soldier’s mother, Maria Vasquez, and older brother, Julio Cesar Vasquez, were very distraught after hearing the news about his death.

Leader captured before
Just hours before Tucker and Menchaca disappeared Friday, a U.S. airstrike killed a key al-Qaida in Iraq leader described as the group’s “religious emir,” Caldwell said.

Mansour Suleiman Mansour Khalifi al-Mashhadani, or Sheik Mansour, died along with two foreign fighters in the same area where the soldiers’ bodies were found. The three were trying to flee in a vehicle.

Al-Mashhadani, identified as an Iraqi in his late 30s, was “a key leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, with excellent religious, military and leadership credentials” and tied to the senior leadership, including al-Zarqawi and his alleged replacement, Caldwell said.

U.S. forces captured Mansour in July 2004 because of his ties to the militant groups Ansar al-Islam and Ansar al-Sunna, but the military let him go because he was not deemed an important terror figure at the time.

Tuesday’s violence across Iraq included at least three bombs striking Baghdad despite a security crackdown launched nearly a week ago.

In the bombing of the home for the elderly, an 18-year-old Sunni wearing an explosives belt blew himself up as senior citizens were lined up to collect monthly pensions. Two elderly women were killed and three people were wounded.

Police said the motive was unclear, but sectarian tensions have been worsening in the predominantly Shiite city of Basra.

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