At least two missing US soldiers alive, general says

BAGHDAD, May 19 (Reuters) The US military's top commander in Iraq said he believed at least two of three missing US soldiers abducted a week ago were still alive.

General David Petraeus, the commander of US forces in Iraq, said it had been feared one of the missing three might have died, but he did not know for certain if all three were alive or dead.

''As of this morning, we thought there were at least two that were probably still alive,'' Petraeus told the US Army newspaper Army Times in an interview yesterday.

''At one point in time there was a sense that one of them might have died, but again we just don't know,'' he said.

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