Two US soldiers who went missing after an attack on their checkpoint were found dead on Monday night, and a senior Iraqi defence official said their bodies showed signs of "barbaric" torture.

"Coalition forces have recovered what we believe are the remains of the soldiers," US military spokesman Major General William Caldwell told a news conference in Baghdad Tuesday.

He said the bodies would be returned to the United States for identification and autopsies to determine how they died.

Iraqi Defence Ministry official Major General Abdul Aziz Mohammed said earlier that a joint US-Iraqi force found the bodies of Privates Thomas Lowell Tucker, 25, and Kristian Menchaca, 23, near an electricity plant in Yusufiya. He said the bodies showed signs of "barbaric torture".

The US military launched an intensive hunt for the soldiers involving aircraft and thousands of troops after vowing not to leave them "out there."

The Mujahideen Shura Council, an umbrella body of insurgent groups led by al-Qaida, claimed in an Internet posting on Monday to have abducted the two soldiers.

(China Daily June 21, 2006)