Pentagon confirms US soldiers captured: CNN

The Pentagon confirmed that some of the 10 US soldiers reported missing in southern Iraq have been captured prisoner.

The Pentagon on Sunday confirmed that some of the 10 US soldiers reported missing in southern Iraq have been captured prisoner and has begun notifying their families, CNN reported.

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The network said the families had begun to be notified shortly after the Arabic-language television network al-Jazeera started to broadcast videotape of interviews with men and women who appeared to be US prisoners of war.

A grim-faced US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said earlier that the video would be a violation of international rules of war, if it did in fact show US prisoners of war.

"The Geneva Convention indicates that it's not permitted to photograph and embarrass or humiliate prisoners of war," Rumsfeld said on CBS television's "Face the Nation."

"If they happen to be American or coalition ground forces captured the Geneva Convention indicates how they should be treated," he said.

Sentiment was echoed by General Richard Myers, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff.

"This is just one more crime by the Iraqi regime," CNN quoted Myers as saying to reporters in a Pentagon corridor.

"Under the Geneva Convention, it's illegal to do things with prisoners of war that are humiliating to those individuals," Rumsfeld told NBC television's "Meet the Press" programme.

"The United States of course avoids showing prisoners of war," he said.

"We have thousands of Iraqi prisoners that are in POW camps ... But we avoid showing photographs of them.