Al-Qaida in Iraq claimed to have captured two US Marines participating in an offensive in western Iraq, and threatened to kill them within 24 hours in a Web statement issued Sunday. A US military spokesman said he believed the claim was false.
A spokesman for US forces in Iraq, Lt. Col. Steve Boylan, said in a statement, "I have not heard anything about any of our folks being taken. I would suspect that these are unfounded rumors, as that is what has happened in the past."
The al-Qaida in Iraq statement said the two Marines were captured during Operation Iron Fist, an offensive that entered its second day Sunday in towns near the Syrian border.
The statement - posted on an Islamic web forum and signed by al-Qaida in Iraq's spokesman, Abuy Maysara al-Iraqi - did not include any pictures or other images. Its authenticity could not be verified.
It said al-Qaida fighters captured the two "after surrounding their patrol," which it said was part of "their futile assault against the homes of Sunnis, the so-called Iron Fist."
Al-Qaida set a 24-hour deadline for Sunni women to be released from Iraqi and US prisons - otherwise the two would be killed. "The mujahedeen are eager to slaughter them," the statement said.
Some 1,000 US Marines, soldiers and sailors launched Operation Iron Fist on Saturday, sweeping into the village of Sadah, 300 kilometers northwest of Baghdad, to hunt for al-Qaida terrorists.
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