Video said to be footage of capture of 3 U.S. soldiers in Iraq

2:05 p.m.

CAIRO — Al Qaeda-linked insurgents killed three American soldiers after capturing them last month in Iraq, according to a militant video released today that claimed to show footage of the ambush.

The video shows confused and jerky night battle scenes and later offers close-ups of two identification cards.

“The Americans sent 4,000 soldiers looking for them,” says an unidentified voice on the video, which was made available by the Washington-based Search for International Terrorist Entities (SITE) Institute. “They were alive and then dead.”

The body of one of the soldiers was found in Iraq’s Euphrates River, but the other two remain missing. Family friends of the missing men said the U.S. military briefed relatives about the video over the weekend.

At the end of the 10-minute -41-second video, the identification cards of the two missing soldiers are shown with the line “Bush is the reason of the loss of your POWs” written on the screen above the cards. SITE did not say how it obtained the video, which features the logo of the media production house of the terrorist group calling itself the Islamic State of Iraq.

Along with the identification cards, the footage also shows credit cards, American and Iraqi money and other personal items the militants called the “booty.”

The video also shows footage, apparently taken before the ambush, of three masked men standing around a stand displaying a sketch of the area, mapping out the attack plan. One of the three men, who are all dressed in black, talks to the camera and points to the sketch. Another stands by him carrying a gun.

“I have urged you to bring me American prisoners. We will review now a previously prepared study in our zone to bring the enemy to a good area, and with God’s help, we will be able to storm their place and capture them at night,” says the man, whose name is not given but who is identified as one of the militant group’s leaders.