Al-Qaida Video Claims Corona Soldier Dead
by Jennifer Manley, Assistant Editor
Maria del Rosario Duran, the mother of a soldier kidnapped in Iraq, refuses to speak ill of the men who claim they have killed and buried her son, Army Spc. Alex Jimenez.
She nods her head no when asked if she is angry with the al-Qaida-linked insurgents who released a chilling video Monday claiming that Jimenez and another soldier were dead and buried.
Duran repeats, like a mantra, that she and her extended community of friends and family continue to pray for the soldier's safe return. We hope and hope and hope,? she said on Tuesday, even after she had seen the video. The Army had called again that day, and again had no news to offer her.
In the 10-minute video, fiery battle footage is shown that is said to be of the May 12 ambush that took place about 20 miles south of Baghdad, during which Jimenez and the two others were presumably kidnapped.
The new video was given out to jihadist forums on Monday by the Islamic State of Iraq, an umbrella group for al-Qaida there. In it, a narrator says in Arabic that the soldiers were captured alive but are now dead and won?t be returned.
"And as you refuse to deliver the bodies of our killed people, we will not deliver the bodies of your dead and their end will be beneath the ground," he says.
The video shows close-ups of the identification cards of the 25-year-old Jimenez and 19-year-old Byron Fouty, of Michigan. The body of the third soldier who went missing the same day, Joseph Anzack of California, has already been recovered from the Euphrates River.
While the video shows credit cards, money, a pistol and other personal effects (none of which Duran recognized as her son?s), it does not show any bodies. It does not, Duran added, offer any proof.
"He's lost, they caught him, he's underground, I don't want to believe that. Until the Army tells me that, I continue to pray and pray," she said.
An analyst at the Search for International Terrorist Entities Institute in Washington, D.C. - which tracks al-Qaida propaganda and provided the clip to the Associated Press - told reporters that videos like these are not always accurate. According to Josh Devon, an institute spokesman, the footage fails to offer documentary proof, such as footage of the soldiers, which would normally be shown in cases of kidnapping.
On the other hand, Devon continued, insurgents tend to be reluctant to release videos that could prove false, thus embarrassing them.
The Army is not convinced the video is true. It continues to engage in the wide-spread search for the men that began nearly a month ago.
Back in Corona, the scene at the Duran home feels precariously balanced between a family reunion and funeral. A tent is set up in the small backyard offering shade to the neighbors, friends and family who are constantly rotating through the lawn chairs set up beneath it.
The doorbell rings frequently with more visitors, who often bear gifts of food and drink. Jimenez's father is in town from his home in Lawrence, Mass. An aunt and two brothers of the soldier also live in the neat house on 37th Drive. Candles still burn on a living room shelf adorned with pictures of the soldier, postcards and fresh flowers.
Bryant is Jimenez's youngest brother. A 10th grader at Flushing High School, he has trouble maintaining his mother's thoroughly positive outlook. He said he was angry when he saw the video. "It was scary, man," was all he would say.
©Queens ChronicleÊ2007
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Qaida-led group claims it killed missing soldiers
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An Al-Qaida-led group in Iraq said on Monday it had killed three US soldiers after capturing them last month but provided no evidence apart from pictures of ID cards of two of the men.
The US military launched a major search operation after the three soldiers went missing on May 12 when a US patrol was attacked in an Al-Qaida stronghold south of Baghdad. Four US soldiers and an Iraqi interpreter were killed in the attack.
A video from the Islamic State in Iraq group posted on the Internet carried images of the US army identification cards of Byron Fouty and Alex Jimenez. The video showed credit cards and what the group said were belongings of the two soldiers.
"(US President George W.) Bush is the cause of the loss of your captives," said a caption on the 10-minute video, posted on websites used by Al-Qaida and other Islamists.
"Fearing the occupying army will continue its searches, harming our Muslim brothers, (the Islamic State in Iraq) decided to settle the matter and announced the news of their killing to cause bitterness to God's enemies," said a speaker on the video.
"The three soldiers were captives, then dead bodies."
The US military said it was studying the video. "We are further analyzing the video... it doesn't appear to contain any definitive evidence indicating the status of our missing soldiers," Brigadier General Kevin Bergner said in a statement.
The video showed a group of masked insurgents planning an attack and shaky night footage of what it said was the raid on the US patrol that led to the capture of the three.
The group, formed last year by Al-Qaida's wing in Iraq and other Sunni insurgents, has claimed responsibility for mass kidnappings and a series of major attacks.
The US military has said a body pulled from the Euphrates River near Baghdad on May 23 was that of one of the three missing soldiers, Private First Class Joseph Anzack. The body had bullet wounds and signs of torture.
The attack on the US patrol occurred near the town of Mahmudiya, in the same area where two US soldiers were kidnapped by Al-Qaida militants last year.
Source: China Daily/Agencies
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