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U.S., Iraqis Search for Missing GIs

The search continued for two missing U.S. soldiers in Iraq who disappeared Saturday after an attack on their checkpoint by insurgents near the Sunni Arab town of Yusufiyah, located south of the capital, Baghdad. Said a military spokesman, Major-General William B. Caldwell IV, ?We are using all available assets, coalition and Iraqi - ground, air and water - to locate and determine the duty status of our soldiers.? Reports indicated that a quick reaction force arrived on the scene less than fifteen minutes after the attack that led to the soldiers? abduction.

?Make no mistake,? Maj. Gen. Caldwell said. ?We never stop looking for our service members until their status is definitively determined, and we will continue to pray for their safe return.? Up this point since hostilities began in Iraq, only one missing American soldier in Iraq could not be accounted for, Sgt. Keith Maupin was abducted on April 9, 2004, after a convoy he was a part of was attacked on an airport road in Baghdad. While a video was later released that supposedly showed Sgt. Maupin dead, the military could not confirm its authenticity.

One soldier was killed in the attack that spurred the latest search, and the names of that soldier as well as those of the two missing soldiers have not been released and will not be until their families have been notified. Meanwhile, the death toll of U.S. troops in Iraq has reached 2,500, the Iraq War has lasted longer than the Korean War, which took 33,629 American lives in a short span of time.