June 2006 abduction of United States soldiers in Iraq

However, the veracity of this stated motive was disputed by some, as knowledge about U.S. involvement in the rape and murder was not widely known at the time of the attack and the original declaration announcing the kidnapping had made no mention of it.

[4][3] The other platoon members nearby heard small arms fire at 7:49 p.m. and arrived at the checkpoint 25 minutes later, finding Babineau dead and Menchaca and Tucker missing.

[8] U.S. Army general William B. Caldwell IV said Menchaca and Tucker appeared not to have died from wounds received during the initial battle with the guerrillas; that they clearly had been killed violently; and that their remains would be sent to the U.S. for DNA testing to definitively identify them and for trying to determine their exact cause of death.

Then the video continues with an audio clip of Osama bin Laden, and then an audio track from Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is heard over the scenes displaying and prodding the two corpses, both dead:[11] Tucker's body is shown to be beheaded,[11][2] with his severed head put on display, while Menchaca's corpse lies face down on the ground as someone steps on his head.

Before he was killed by being beaten to death, Menchaca's captors violently tortured him, cutting out his eye and tongue, kicking him in the back, and breaking his jaw.

[13] U.S. officials said on 11 July 2006, the released MSC video "demonstrates the barbaric and brutal nature of the terrorists and their complete disregard for human life".

[3] In October 2008, an Iraqi court convicted and sentenced to death Ibrahim Karim Muhammed Salih al-Qaraghuli for the abduction, torture, and killing of Menchaca and Tucker.

Expert testimony linked al-Qaraghuli's fingerprints to bloody prints found on the truck used to drag the bodies of Tucker and Menchaca through the streets of Yusufiyah.