The U.S. soldiers fanned out with search dogs and shovels in a dangerous swath of desert territory on Baghdad's northwestern outskirts.
The remains of Staff Sgt. Keith Matthew Maupin were found hours later as dusk fell _ about 20 kilometers (12 miles) from the site where he was captured in an ambush nearly four years ago.
The March 20 discovery was a bittersweet moment for the troops of the 1st Battalion, 21st Stryker Infantry Regiment.
"To find out that we were able to recover one of our fallen comrades and bring him home to his family is really an indescribable feeling," said Capt. Jeff Higgins, the commander of the Bravo Company that found the remains. "I'm sure it took some hope away from the family, but I think it probably gives them some much needed closure."
It was the second search operation for Maupin in Abu Ghraib in two months as the U.S. military received mounting tips from new Sunni allies, including former insurgents, who have joined forces against al-Qaida in Iraq.
U.S. commanders said the final discovery came from a combination of piecing together years of information and new tips, luck and "a lot of painstaking walking."
The Army used DNA testing to identify the remains and said the discovery of a shirt helped in the search. But commanders declined to provide more details about the items found out of respect for the family.
Maupin's parents, Carolyn and Keith Maupin, said Friday they know very little about how his remains were found. They are awaiting release of the remains, which have been undergoing testing at a military facility in Rockville, Maryland, and plan to then schedule a public visitation in a civic center in Maupin's home community east of Cincinnati.
An official in the local awakening council, as the U.S.-allied Sunni groups are called, said U.S. soldiers had spent the past year driving through the area with loudspeakers broadcasting an offer of a US$200,000 award for information on the whereabouts of Maupin's body.
The search appeared to intensify about a month ago, focusing on the sparsely populated areas around the highway linking Baghdad and the former insurgent stronghold of Fallujah to the west, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of security concerns.
He said many local witnesses had reported seeing bones and U.S. military clothes near the highway.
Lt. Col. Mario Diaz, the battalion commander, declined to comment on reward money or point to a specific piece of information that led his troops to the remains.
"We were narrowing it down and it got to the point where we had the right people, the right information and the right location and we were close enough to take advantage of it," he said.
The April 9, 2004, capture of Maupin, then a 20-year-old private first class from Batavia, Ohio, was one of the most brazen attacks against U.S. forces as the Sunni-led insurgency staged a series of kidnappings and videotaped beheadings.
Diaz, who took over the battlespace comprising the volatile area of Abu Ghraib on Jan. 13, said the discovery of the remains showed how times have changed, aided by a Sunni alliance that has been one of the key factors in a sharp decline in violence nationwide.
"It is a step in the right direction," he said.
Diaz's first try at finding Maupin in a different spot in late January failed _ as so many had before it _ and he was prepared for the March effort to do the same. The operations were dubbed Trojan Honor I and II after Maupin's high school mascot.
Abu Ghraib is a predominantly Sunni farming district that sits on the edge of Anbar province and has been one of the hardest areas to control since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. It also is the site of a prison that became notorious when U.S. troops were caught abusing inmates there.
Diaz, a 40-year-old from Pasadena, California, said it remains dangerous. Troops patrolling the area had faced small-arms fire in the 72 hours leading up to the operation so heavy security had to be imposed before the search could get under way, he said.
Soldiers employing shovels, small-hand tools and search dogs combed for hours through the rural area, which is lined with dirt roads and canals but not much else, Diaz said. Law enforcement professionals also were on hand to make sure any remains found were treated respectfully.
Daylight was waning when the remains and personal effects were found.
"It was a lot of painstaking walking and tiring work," said Higgins, a 29-year-old from Jacksonville, Florida, who was with the troops when they found the remains.
Maupin disappeared after his fuel convoy, part of the Bartonville, Ill.-based 724th Transportation Company, was ambushed west of Baghdad _ a year to the day after invading U.S. forces entered Baghdad, officially marking the ouster of Saddam Hussein.
A week later, the Arab television network Al-Jazeera aired a videotape showing Maupin sitting on the floor surrounded by five masked men holding automatic rifles.
That June, Al-Jazeera aired another tape purporting to show a U.S. soldier being shot. But the dark and grainy tape showed only the back of the victim's head and not the actual shooting, and the U.S. Army ruled it was inconclusive.
Diaz said it was satisfying to be leading the unit that found Maupin.
"We knew that we were providing closure to a family," he said. "We were completing our mission of never leaving a fallen comrade behind."
