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BAGHDAD (AFP) - The US military confirmed on Thursday that a body found floating in the Euphrates was one of three American soldiers snatched by Al-Qaeda 12 days ago as the hunt continues for the remaining troops.

Lieutenant Colonel Josslyn Aberle, a spokeswoman for US command in Baghdad, told AFP a body found on Wednesday had been identified as Private First Class Joseph Anzack, and that the search for his missing comrades would continue unabated.

News of the death dealt another blow to the US war effort at a critical moment in Washington, with Congress preparing to vote on a 100-billion-dollar bill to fund the campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Democratic majority in Congress is angry that the bill contains no deadline for US troop withdrawal, but after an earlier bill was vetoed by President George W. Bush it is expected to vote grudgingly to authorise the spending.

Thousands of US soldiers equipped with boats and helicopters are scouring an area of palm groves and canals south of Baghdad, now looking for just two missing soldiers -- Private Byron Fouty and Specialist Alex Jiminez.

On May 12, insurgents ambushed their small unit manning a temporary observation post near Qarghuli village outside Mahmudiyah, bombarding it with automatic fire and explosives, killing four soldiers and an Iraqi interpreter.

Reinforcements arrived at the scene to find three soldiers missing, and an Al-Qaeda front organisation, the so-called "Islamic State of Iraq," later boasted that it had kidnapped the men and threatened to harm them.

On Wednesday, Iraqi police found the body of an American soldier floating in the Euphrates river downstream of Mahmudiyah at Mussayib, another town in a region notorious as the "Triangle of Death" insurgent stronghold.

Captain Muthanna Hassan of the Iraqi police in Mussayib, 55 kilometres (34 miles) south of Baghdad, said the corpse was in US uniform and had been shot several times in the back of the head, execution-style.

Aberle firmly denied "false reports" in the Iraqi media that US forces had found two more bodies trapped against a dam downstream of Mussayib.

Also on Wednesday, two more US soldiers were killed in action in western Iraq, bringing the US death toll for May so far to 88 and keeping the month on track to be one of the military's bloodiest since the war began.

The two confirmed fatalities and Anzack's death brought the total number of US troops known to have died in the Iraq campaign since the US invasion of March 2003 to 3,436, according to an AFP tally based on Pentagon reports.

The rapidly rising toll came at an emotional moment for an American public already turning against Bush's strategy in Iraq and Afghanistan, where troops have been deployed for years with little sign of imminent victory.

Memorial Day, this weekend, is when Americans remember their war dead, and this year they will do so against a background of fierce controversy.

On Wednesday, Bush attempted to rally support by seeking once again to tie the battle in Iraq to his "War on Terror," touting newly declassified evidence that Al-Qaeda wants to use Iraq as a base for attacks on the United States.

"Victory in Iraq is important for Osama bin Laden. And victory in Iraq is vital for the United States," he said at the graduation ceremony of the US Coast Guard Academy in Connecticut, referring to the network's leader.

But more than four years since a US-led invasion force swept into Iraq, that case is proving harder and harder to make.

A USA Today/Gallup poll published on May 9 said that 59 percent of US voters want a deadline to withdraw US troops from Iraq and that only 22 percent accept Bush's argument that their presence prevents new terrorist attacks.