Group says US soldiers slain over Iraq rape, murder

WASHINGTON, July 11 (Reuters) An al Qaeda-led group released a video showing gruesome footage of two U S soldiers killed in June and links the killings to a rape and murder case that has outraged Iraqis, according to a group that monitors extremists' Web sites.

The video, issued by the Mujahideen Shura Council yesterday in Iraq shows the mutilated corpses of the two American soldiers the group claimed to have abducted June 19, the SITE Institute said in a statement on its Web site.

The video is ''extremely graphic footage'' and opened with a statement that it was presented as ''revenge for our sister who was dishonored by a soldier of the same brigade,'' according to SITE.

There was no immediate comment on the video from U S officials.

The video was preceded by a previously released Osama bin Laden speech, SITE said.

The voice of Al Qaeda leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, killed in a U S air strike on June 7, was heard over the scenes in which the Mujahideen display and prod the corpses, the SITE statement said.

Pfc Kristian Menchaca and Pfc Thomas Tucker kidnapped and killed in Iraq were from the same unit as a former private now charged with rape and murder of an Iraqi girl and the murder of three of her family at a home near Mahmudiya, Iraq, around March 12.

Former private Steven Green has pleaded not guilty in a U S federal court to rape and four counts of murder. Four soldiers in his former unit, the 502nd Infantry Regiment, face the same charges.

Another soldier, apparently a sixth member of Green's former unit, was charged with dereliction of duty for not reporting the crime in March.

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