BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) — The body of a man dragged from the Euphrates River south of Baghdad has been identified as Pfc. Joseph J. Anzack Jr., one of three U.S. soldiers missing after an attack nearly two week ago, according to the U.S. military.
Lt. Col. Josslyn Aberle said Thursday that reports of a second body being found along with Anzack’s are false.
Also Thursday in Iraq, a car bomb killed at least 28 Iraqis taking part in a funeral procession in Falluja, west of Baghdad.
Anzack, 20, was a gunner from Torrance, California.
“They told us, ‘We’re sorry to inform you the body we found has been identified as Joe,’ ” the soldier’s aunt, Debbie Anzack, told The Associated Press on Wednesday. “I’m in disbelief.”
The other two missing soldiers are Spc. Alex R. Jimenez, 25, of Lawrence, Massachusetts, and Pvt. Byron W. Fouty, 19, of Waterford, Michigan.
Jimenez’s mother, Maria del Rosario Duran, pleaded Wednesday for his safety.
“This is very hard for me and for my family,” she said. “Everybody loves Alex. Alex, I miss you. Please come back. If somebody’s got him, please bring my son back, please.”
As the search went on for the other two missing soldiers, Spc. Daniel Seitz, 22, a member of Anzack’s platoon, told the AP he was trying to remain strong.
“It just angers me that it’s just another friend I’ve got to lose and deal with, because I’ve already lost 13 friends since I’ve been here and I don’t know if I can take any more of this,” he said.
Anzack’s platoon leader, 1st Lt. Morgan Spring-Glace, told CNN last week that local media had once — before the May 12 attack — erroneously reported Anzack was dead.
A massive military manhunt in the area — known as the Triangle of Death — started immediately after news of the three soldiers’ apparent abduction.
On Wednesday, an official with Iraq’s Interior Ministry said authorities in Mussayib were notified by Iraqi civilians who saw a body floating down the Euphrates. Witnesses told police the man looked “Western.”
Witnesses said he had gunshot wounds to the head and torso, and a U.S. military source said the body was clad in U.S. military-issued pants.
Mussayib is about 22 miles (35 kilometers) south of Mahmoudiya, a town south of Baghdad where an eight-person military team was attacked on May 12. Four U.S. soldiers and an Iraqi soldier were killed, and three U.S. soldiers were thought to be captured.
Car bomb kills at least 28 in funeral procession
At least 28 people were killed and 52 others were wounded Thursday when a parked car bomb detonated during a funeral procession in central Falluja, an Interior Ministry official said.
Falluja is in Anbar province, a Sunni-dominated region west of Baghdad that has been the scene of fighting between U.S. and Iraqi forces and insurgents.
Also Thursday, 15 “suspected terrorists” were detained by U.S.-led coalition forces targeting al Qaeda in Iraq, the U.S. military said. The arrests were made in Karma in Anbar province, east of the Anbar town of Amiriya and in Mosul in northern Iraq.
Troops also “found a cache of mortars, dynamite and jihadist media” in an operation near Salman Pak south of Baghdad.
Also, the military on Thursday reported the Monday arrests in Diyala province of three militants wanted for “murder, kidnapping and displacing Shia families.”
Team working up new strategy
The U.S. military is joining forces with the State Department to prepare a new Iraq strategy that includes negotiating cease-fire and power-sharing agreements with some enemy combatants, U.S. officials said Wednesday.
A “joint campaign plan redesign team” is preparing the diplomatic and military strategy for Iraq, which is expected to be approved by the end of the month.
The team laying out the new course for how to proceed in the four-year-old war is led by Gen. David Petraeus, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, and Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, the officials told CNN.
One element of the plan is to try to identify groups of people — possibly including Sunni extremists and militia groups — with whom U.S. officials feel they can do business, such as negotiating power-sharing and cease-fire agreements and granting economic aid, the sources said.
But those with whom officials feel they cannot do business — such as determined suicide bombers — will remain targets of military forces, the sources said.
“We have been focused too long on defeating the enemy,” one official said. “We need to bring them to the negotiating table.”
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