A coalition of insurgents affiliated to al-Qaeda in Iraq today claimed to have abducted two American soldiers in a Sunni district south of Baghdad on Friday.

While an intensive manhunt involving more than 8,000 Iraqi and US soldiers scoured the Iraqi capital and villages across the insurgent heartland known as the "Triangle of Death" for traces of the men and their kidnappers, the militants mocked what they called "the strongest country in the world".

"Your brothers in the military wing of the Mujahideen Shura Council kidnapped two American soldiers near Yusufiya," the statement said. "We will provide you with more details about the incident in the next coming days."

The Mujahideen Shura Council is an umbrella group comprising at least eight Sunni Arab insurgent groups, including al-Qaeda. It was formed in January after militant leaders feared that a series of brutal al-Qaeda attacks against civilians had alienated ordinary Iraqis.

Today's statement, which could not be verified but which was posted on an Islamist website frequently used by insurgent groups, said the abduction of Kristian Menchaca and Thomas Tucker, both privates in the 101st Airborne Division, demonstrated "the weakness of US intelligence."

It made no demands and appeared to derive satisfaction from the unprecedented American response to the attack. During the weekend, a massive Iraqi-led security operation to clear Baghdad of insurgents was interrupted to make way for the hunt for the soldiers.

According to a US military statement released today, three brigades of soldiers, fighter jets, unmanned Predator drones, boats and helicopters have been drafted into the search. Three dive teams have waded throuigh the Euphrates, twelve villages have been cleared, three suspected insurgents killed and seven American soldiers injured in the hunt.

"The American army, using different kinds of machines and armour, raided the area where the incident took place but the army of 'the world's strongest country' returned without success, humiliated," said the militants' statement today.

Private Menchaca, 23, of Houston, Texas, and Private Tucker, 25, of Madras, Oregon, were kidnapped after they came under attack at a traffic control point near Yusufiya, south of Baghdad, shortly before 8pm last Friday. A third soldier, Specialist David Babineau, was killed in the attack.

The US statement said: "We are using all available assets, coalition and Iraqi, to find our soldiers and will not stop looking until we find them. We will never stop looking for our service members until their status is definitively determined."

Ned Parker, correspondent for The Times in Baghdad, said US forces were desperate to find the soldiers and keep up the positive momentum after the killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi eleven days ago. "Certainly the insurgents are trying to demoralise the American public," he said. "A gruesome video with two American soldiers and their kidnappers would be a huge blow to George Bush after the recent successes."

The manhunt continued as prosecutors rested their case against Saddam Hussein, demanding the death penalty for his alleged ordering of the killing of 148 Shia villagers in 1982.

Saddam's half-brother, Barzan al-Tikriti, and five other Saddam-era officials accused of orchestrating the massacre in the village of Dujail should also be executed, the court was told by Jaafar al-Moussawi, the chief prosecutor in the trial of the fallen dictator.

"The prosecution demand that the court impose the heaviest penalties on those defendants, who spread corruption on earth and where not even trees escape their oppression, so we demand the court impose the death penalty," he said. The hearing was adjourned until July 10.

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