March 24, 2003	Monday	Muharram 20, 1424

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WASHINGTON, March 23: Iraqi troops have captured some US soldiers who were earlier reported missing, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on Sunday.

Media reports have said that at least 11 US soldiers were now in Iraq’s custody but Rumsfeld refused to disclose the exact number.

US officials had earlier denied the capture but confirmed it when al-Jazeera television showed pictures of the captured soldiers.

“The Geneva convention makes it illegal to show pictures of prisoners of war and humiliate them,” Mr Rumsfeld told reporters in Washington. He urged Iraqi officials to “treat those prisoners according to the Geneva convention.”

Mr Rumsfeld said the coalition forces too had more than 2,000 Iraqi prisoners and were treating them according to the convention.

He also confirmed that a British plane was shot down over Iraq by a US patriot missile, which hit the plane by mistake.

“There have been some aircraft that have not returned safely, this includes a UK aircraft, some helicopters that collided over Kuwait and did not return safely,” he said.

The Iraqi television earlier showed a video of Iraqi soldiers looking for the pilot of the British plane along the Tigris river.

The capture of the US soldiers, Rumsfeld said, would not affect the outcome of the war. “The Saddam regime is over, it will not be there in a predictable time,” he said.

Gen Richard Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had told the Fox News earlier on Sunday that some US soldiers were missing in south central Iraq but did not reveal that they had been captured.

Later a US television network — ABC News — reported that the soldiers were captured when an expeditionary force of the US Marines came under heavy Iraqi fire near the city of Nasiriya. He said at least 50 US marines were also wounded in this intense firefight.

The soldiers had taken a wrong turn outside Nasiriya on a mission to carry out repair work. They were traveling in a column of vehicles that came under heavy fire, including from an Iraqi tank.

The capture was observed by other coalition forces nearby.

The report said the marines were wounded when their vehicle was apparently hit by Iraqi artillery near Nasiriya.

Reporters traveling with the marines said a battalion of some 1,000 Marines was engaged in an intense firefight in Nasiriya, and helicopters had been called in to evacuate wounded coalition soldiers from the battle zone.

The firefight had lasted over 12 hours and was continuing, they said.

The Pentagon refused to give the exact number of the soldiers who were evacuated after being wounded near Nasiriya.