Alex Jimenez and two other missing American soldiers were kidnapped by "the big player" in Iraq's Triangle of Death, General David Petraeus said.
Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, also said he believes at least two of the men are still alive.
There was still no sign of the soldiers as U.S. and Iraqi troops jumped across ditches and waded through mud in difficult, canal-lined terrain in the eighth day of the hunt for them south of Baghdad.
But Petraeus said he knows who is responsible for kidnapping Jimenez, 25, of Lawrence, along with Byron Fouty, 19, of Michigan and Joseph Anzack Jr., 20, of California.
"We know who that guy is," Petraeus said in an interview with the Army Times magazine published on its Web site yesterday.
Petraeus did not give the man's name but described him as "sort of an affiliate of al-Qaida."
"He's the big player down in that area," he said. "We've tangled with him before."
He said a tipster identified the people who likely conducted the attack on U.S. forces that resulted in the kidnapping, Petraeus said.
"Somebody's given us the names of all the guys that participated in it and told us how they did it and all the rest of that stuff," he told the Army Times.
"Now, we have to verify that at some point in time, but it sounds spot on. We've had all kinds of tips down there. ... We just tragically haven't found the individuals. But on the other hand, they haven't been able to smuggle out, at least to my knowledge, the traditional video."
Petraeus said he did not know for certain whether the three 10th Mountain Division soldiers were alive.
"As of this morning, we thought there were at least two that were probably still alive," he said in the interview conducted Friday. "At one point in time there was a sense that one of them might have died, but again we just don't know."
Searchers suffered another disappointment late yesterday, when they received what seemed like a promising tip that the soldiers were in a Sunni mosque or a tribal sheik's house in Latifiyah. Soldiers went house-to-house and searched vehicles during a three-hour sweep through the neighborhood but turned up nothing.
The hunt for 25-year-old Jimenez and the other missing U.S. soldiers is taking a toll on the searchers.
Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, also said he believes at least two of the men are still alive.
There was still no sign of the soldiers as U.S. and Iraqi troops jumped across ditches and waded through mud in difficult, canal-lined terrain in the eighth day of the hunt for them south of Baghdad.
But Petraeus said he knows who is responsible for kidnapping Jimenez, 25, of Lawrence, along with Byron Fouty, 19, of Michigan and Joseph Anzack Jr., 20, of California.
"We know who that guy is," Petraeus said in an interview with the Army Times magazine published on its Web site yesterday.
Petraeus did not give the man's name but described him as "sort of an affiliate of al-Qaida."
"He's the big player down in that area," he said. "We've tangled with him before."
He said a tipster identified the people who likely conducted the attack on U.S. forces that resulted in the kidnapping, Petraeus said.
"Somebody's given us the names of all the guys that participated in it and told us how they did it and all the rest of that stuff," he told the Army Times.
"Now, we have to verify that at some point in time, but it sounds spot on. We've had all kinds of tips down there. ... We just tragically haven't found the individuals. But on the other hand, they haven't been able to smuggle out, at least to my knowledge, the traditional video."
Petraeus said he did not know for certain whether the three 10th Mountain Division soldiers were alive.
"As of this morning, we thought there were at least two that were probably still alive," he said in the interview conducted Friday. "At one point in time there was a sense that one of them might have died, but again we just don't know."
Searchers suffered another disappointment late yesterday, when they received what seemed like a promising tip that the soldiers were in a Sunni mosque or a tribal sheik's house in Latifiyah. Soldiers went house-to-house and searched vehicles during a three-hour sweep through the neighborhood but turned up nothing.
The hunt for 25-year-old Jimenez and the other missing U.S. soldiers is taking a toll on the searchers.
A U.S. soldier was killed and four others wounded by a roadside bomb shortly after their Humvees rolled out of base before dawn yesterday and they began a patrol on foot. A sniper also shot and seriously wounded a U.S. soldier keeping watch from the roof of a house that had been commandeered as a resting place.
The death was believed to be the second during the search for the three missing soldiers. A soldier was killed by another roadside bomb while searching a nearby village on Thursday.
Troops who spent days crossing parched sand and muddy fields in temperatures above 100 vowed to press forward. But their exhaustion was evident as they took a break on the concrete floors of a house west of Latifiyah, about 20 miles south of Baghdad.
"It could be worse. I could be sitting in the shoes of those guys who were abducted," said Spc. Andrew Carbajal, a 20-year-old medic from Clinton, Iowa.
The missing soldiers were attacked in the so-called Triangle of Death on May 12. Five others in their party were killed.
An al-Qaida front group, the Islamic State of Iraq, said it captured the soldiers and issued two Internet statements warning the Americans to call off the search.
Capt. Aaron Bright, of the 10th Mountain Division, had been out for five of the past seven days looking for any sign of the missing soldiers - a piece of clothing, a glove or a boot. He said they had found a piece of body armor earlier in the week.
He said the troops were taking more breaks and slowing down a bit after the frenetic activity of the initial days of the search effort.
The U.S. military has offered rewards of up to $200,000 for information about the missing troops, but most tips have led to dead ends. Some were seen as intentional misinformation.
The American troops have stressed the importance of the help they are getting from their Iraqi counterparts, who are walking with them and often digging through piles of bricks and other rubble to search for roadside bombs.
Brig. Gen. Ali Jassim Mohammed al-Freiji, commander of the 4th Brigade, 6th Iraqi army division, said the search was just as important for them.
"Any attack against U.S. soldiers is an attack against Iraqi soldiers," he said.
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