Search Intensifies for Ambushed U.S. Soldiers Near Baghdad

EDWARD WONG: That's correct. That is the assumption right now. Of course, we don't know whether the men are alive. The Islamic State of Iraq, the group that has claimed responsibility for the attack, says that -- or hints that these men are alive. It released a message today telling the military not to proceed with the searches and telling the military that they'll never see these men again.

But the assumption is that the same group that carried out the attack on the vehicles, which we hear are Humvees, is the same group that took these men.

RAY SUAREZ: What's known about the Islamic State of Iraq? Tell us more about the group.

EDWARD WONG: Well, the group is an umbrella group that includes al-Qaida in Mesopotamia, and the understanding is that it's a mostly Iraqi group. There is a myth out there that says a lot of this violence is being perpetrated by foreigners, by people coming from outside Iraq, but all our sources tell us that it's mostly Iraqis and that they're carrying out this violence for different purposes. But most members of this group are believed to be very religious, very militant people.

EDWARD WONG: We've seen and heard conflicting reports. There are some reports that say that they were moving, that they were part of a larger group that was moving, and that they were -- this particular vehicle was incapacitated by a roadside bomb, this vehicle and another one, and then that was when the ambush with gunfire occurred.

We don't know exactly why these two vehicles were somehow left isolated from other soldiers. The military's report says that soldiers in the area heard the explosion, so there were other people in the area, but they couldn't get back to these two vehicles quickly enough.

And there's one report that says that's because there were other roadside bombs in the area. And the vehicles that were elsewhere had a tough time getting safely back to the two vehicles that were under attack.

There's also an indication that the vehicles might not have been moving, that they might have been stationary, maybe doing what's called over-watch, just trying to secure that spot and making sure that insurgents weren't active there.

EDWARD WONG: It's been a fairly rare occurrence. And, in the past, when troops have been captured, it's usually ended fairly badly. In almost all cases, the troops have ended up dead. In many cases, the military has found their bodies again, afterwards at some point, and proclaimed them dead.

There's at least one case I know of where the soldier is still classified as missing, because they have not found his body, even though there's videotape that purportedly shows him being shot in the head.

Now, one of the last kidnappings took place earlier this winter in Karbala, when four American soldiers were kidnapped, and then they were later killed. And this was supposedly by a Shiite militia group.

Then, around a year ago, in the exact same area where these three latest soldiers were kidnapped, two American soldiers were kidnapped from their vehicle. And they quickly turned up dead. They were found a few days later, and their bodies had been mutilated and had been booby-trapped with explosives.