Military: At Least One GI Beheaded

(CBS/AP)  At least one and possibly both of the soldiers who were mutilated and killed in Iraq last weekend was beheaded, a U.S. military official said Wednesday.

The description by the official, who was in Washington, confirmed fears that were raised by other U.S. and Iraqi officials who have said the mens' bodies showed sign of brutal treatment.

The official requested anonymity because the final report on the bodies' conditions has not been formally released.

On Tuesday, after Iraqi officials disclosed that the bodies were found, the Shura Council posted a Web statement, saying that the successor to slain Iraqi al Qaeda leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's had "slaughtered" the soldiers. The language in the statement, which could not be authenticated, suggested the group was saying the men were beheaded.

The remains of the two soldiers were expected to arrive Wednesday at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware for DNA testing to positively identify them.

The bodies are believed to be of Pfc. Kristian Menchaca, 23, and Pfc. Thomas L. Tucker, 25. The two soldiers disappeared after an insurgent attack at a checkpoint by a Euphrates River canal, 12 miles south of Baghdad, that killed another U.S. soldier.

The U.S. military recovered the bodies Tuesday in an area it said was rigged with explosives. It took troops roughly 12 hours to get to the bodies, said a second U.S. military official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the details have yet to be released.

An Iraqi official said the Americans were tortured and killed in a "barbaric" way.

Spc. David J. Babineau, 25, was killed in the attack. The three men were assigned to the 1st Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade, 101st Airborne Division.

The insurgent group claimed the new leader of al Qaeda in Iraq executed the men personally, but it offered no evidence. The U.S. military did not confirm whether the soldiers died from wounds suffered in an attack Friday or were kidnapped and later killed.

In Oregon, Tucker's family grieved in private. They said in a statement they were devastated by the news but heartened by the community support.

"Tom has gained a much larger family through this ordeal than he had when he left home to go help to free the Iraqi people and protect his country from the threat of terrorism," the family said.

"I think that everybody that knew Tom, and knows him, will be pretty devastated about it," Rick Strader, who worked with Tucker when Tucker was in high school, told CBS News correspondent Stephan Kaufman in Tucker's hometown of Madras. "It's horrible. They're over there doing a job and something like this happens and it really hits home. It hits this town really hard."

Menchaca's relatives are outraged at hearing grisly reports of his slaying through the media.

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