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US soldier's body found: relative

Staff Sergeant Nathan Brooks, 25, from Vergennes, Illinois, rests on Wednesday after a long mission 11 days after a May 12 attack that left four US soldiers and an Iraqi soldier dead and three comrades missing in Quarghuli village, 20km south of Baghdad, Iraq. PHOTO: AP

A body recovered by Iraqi police from the Euphrates River south of Baghdad was identified as one of three US soldiers abducted in an ambush claimed by al-Qaeda, a relative said.

A second body was also found in the area, but there was no immediate word if it was also one of the missing soldiers, according to a US military official who requested anonymity on Wednesday because the information has not yet been released.

Despite the discovery of the bodies, thousands of US and Iraqi soldiers combed fields and searched homes south of Baghdad for a 13th day yesterday, hoping to turn up clues about the soldiers.

"The search continues," said Lieutenant Colonel Christopher Garver, a US military spokesman.

Military officials told the family of Private first class Joseph Anzack that a commanding officer identified the remains recovered from the river, but that DNA tests were still pending.

"They told us, `We're sorry to inform you the body we found has been identified as Joe,'" the soldier's aunt, Debbie Anzack, said on Wednesday. "I'm in disbelief."

Anzack, 20, vanished along with the two others after their combat team was ambushed on May 12 about 32km outside Baghdad. Five others, including an Iraqi, were killed in the ambush, subsequently claimed by al-Qaeda.

The other missing soldiers are Specialist Alex Jimenez, 25, and Private Byron Fouty, 19.

US forces also disclosed nine more deaths on Wednesday, raising to 20 the number of US troops killed in four days.

The increase in US deaths and the discovery of the bodies come at a difficult moment for Washington, where the administration of President George W. Bush and Congress are struggling to agree on funding for the unpopular war. The search for the captured soldiers has also taken thousands of troops out of the pool of forces for the Baghdad security crackdown.

Nationwide, at least 104 people were killed in sectarian violence or found dead on Wednesday. Thirty-two died in suicide bombings.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, meanwhile, announced he was ready to fill six Cabinet seats vacated by politicians loyal to radical anti-US Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr in a mass resignation last month.

Al-Sadr, who went into hiding in Iran at the start of the Baghdad security crackdown, ordered his ministers to quit the government over al-Maliki's refusal to call for a timetable for US withdrawal.

One of Wednesday's suicide bombings hit a cafe in the town of Mandali, on the Iranian border 96km east of Baghdad. The attacker walked into the packed cafe and blew himself up, killing 22 people and wounding 13, police said.

The cafe in the mixed Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish city was popular with police officers -- but none was there at the time, police said. A man in his 30s wearing a heavy jacket despite the heat was seen walking into the cafe seconds before the blast, according to police.

In the second suicide assault, a bomber blew himself up in the house of two brothers who were supporting a Sunni alliance opposed to al-Qaeda in Anbar Province, killing 10 people, including the men, their wives and children, police Lieutenant Colonel Jabar Rasheed Nayef said.

The attacker, a 17-year-old neighbor, broke into the house of the two men, Sheik Mohammed Ali and police Lieutenant Colonel Abed Ali, and detonated his bomb belt late Tuesday in Albo Obaid, about 96km west of Baghdad.

The targeted men were part of the Anbar Salvation Council, a group of Sunni tribal leaders backing the government's fight against al-Qaeda.
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