Al-Qaeda taunts US over captives

If these terrorists so much as a mess up a hair on our soldiers head, Bush needs to unleash every weapon we have and turn this desert wasteland into a parking lot!

From Al Jazeera --

An Iraqi group linked to al-Qaeda has said that three US troops which it claims to have captured will be safe only if the army calls off its search for the missing men.

The Islamic State of Iraq, which works closely with al-Qaeda, issued the taunt - to which US spokesmen have not publicly responded - in a statement posted on a website on Monday.

"Your soldiers are in our grip. If you want the safety of your soldiers then do not search for them," the statement said.

Referring to the rape and murder of a 14-year-old Iraqi girl, Abeer Qassim al-Janabi, by American soldiers last year, it said: "You should remember what you have done to our sister Abeer in the same area."

The US military has said it believed that the soldiers had been captured by fighters linked to al-Qaeda but said that the search for the men would continue.

"At this time, we believe they were abducted by terrorists belonging to al-Qaeda or an affiliated group," Major-General William Caldwell, the chief US military spokesman in Iraq, said in a statement.

Caldwell said that a manhunt involving 4,000 US troops backed by jets, helicopters, sniffer dogs and spy satellites would continue until the three are found. More....