Google - BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- The U.S. military on Thursday identified the American soldier kidnapped in Baghdad as 41-year-old Ahmed Qusai al-Taai.
Maj. Gen. William Caldwell said the soldier left the Green Zone on October 23 to visit his Iraqi wife when he was handcuffed and taken away by gunmen.
Since he went missing, the U.S. military has gone all out to find him. Al-Taai is an Iraqi-American translator.
Caldwell, speaking to reporters at his weekly news briefing, said the military has intelligence on who might have taken the soldier and believes that the people who kidnapped him still have him. He declined to say who the suspects are.
Along with the military operations, Caldwell said there is a lot of "political activity" going on to secure the release of the soldier.
"Iraqi security forces and coalition troops are working around the clock to return him to safety, get him back to his family and to catch the perpetrators of this crime," he said, adding that there has been "a particular focus east of the Tigris River."
Earlier reports had raised the question of whether the soldier's marriage to an Iraqi violated military regulations, which forbid troops from marrying citizens of a country where U.S. forces are engaged in combat.
Caldwell said al-Taai had not violated any rules because he married his Iraqi wife before he deployed to Iraq.
Donkeys bearing arms
Meanwhile, Iraqi security forces intercepted six donkeys carrying 53 anti-tank mines and an anti-tank rocket near the Iranian border in Iraq, the U.S. military said on Thursday.
The action took place in eastern Diyala province about 3 miles from the border, where the Iraqi forces had been patrolling, the U.S. military said.
Two men in the area ran away before they could be captured, and the donkeys were later let go after a coalition forces explosive experts team safety detonated the weapons.
The bomb team determined that the mines were Soviet and Italian-made. One was set up to be used as a roadside bomb, the military said.
Units from Task Force Lightning, 5th Iraqi Army Division, Iraqi police and Iraqi Border Patrol are responsible for security in Diyala province.
In Baghdad, gunmen shot and killed a professor along with his wife and son Thursday, officials with Iraq's Health and Interior Ministries said.
According to the officials, Jasim Mohammed al-Zahri, who was dean of the Economic and Management college at Mustansariya University, and his family members were killed as they drove in northern Baghdad around 7:30 a.m. (11:30 p.m. ET Wednesday).
To the west, in Anbar province, a U.S.-led coalition airstrike killed an al Qaeda in Iraq terrorist leader Wednesday, a U.S. military statement said.
Rafa Abdul Salam Hamud Al Ithawi -- also known as Abu Taha -- was killed with "precision laser guided munitions" targeting his car, east of Ramadi, which is about 50 miles west of the Iraqi capital. His driver was also killed, the statement said.
The statement said the leader "frequently harbored foreign fighters who entered Iraq illegally in order to assault innocent Iraqis and coalition forces."
Iraqi leader criticizes easing of crackdown
Wednesday, a Sunni leader criticized the Shiite-led government's handling of militias and death squads.
Tariq al-Hashimi -- a vice president of Iraq -- said at a news conference the easing of a security crackdown in Baghdad's volatile Shiite neighborhood of Sadr City may be emboldening members of Shiite death squads.
He said he thinks the security situation is deteriorating largely because the Shiite-led government isn't doing enough to take on militias.
"Are we sending the wrong message to the terrorists?" al-Hashimi asked, referring to the possibility that Shiite death squads would exploit the opening of selected checkpoints. (Watch spin after warning of slide toward chaos -- 1:32 )
"Now that the iron fist has loosened, [terrorists] can move around as you please and shake the stability in Baghdad again. Is this in the country's interest?"
U.S. and Iraqi troops tightened security in Baghdad during the hunt for al-Ta'ai.
U.S. and Iraqi checkpoints were set up around Baghdad's sprawling Sadr City slum, the Shiite stronghold of the Mehdi Army, followers of anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, a Shiite, on Tuesday ordered the removal of the Sadr City checkpoints, which inconvenienced civilian Iraqis, after al-Sadr called for a general strike and threatened possible violence.
Checkpoints along Army Canal -- which leads into eastern Baghdad, including the Sadr City area -- were opened, and cars and pedestrians were allowed to pass freely. (Watch Sadr City celebrate al-Sadr 'victory' -- 1:50)
Al-Hashimi said militia attacks Tuesday night and Wednesday against Sunni Arabs began soon after the checkpoints were removed.
Three U.S. troops killed
The U.S. military reported three American troop deaths on Wednesday, raising the number killed during the Iraq war to 2,812. Seven civilian contractors for the military have also been killed.
A U.S. soldier assigned to the Multi-National Division - Baghdad died Wednesday when a roadside bomb struck his vehicle, the U.S. military said. And two U.S. troops died Tuesday in Anbar province, one in combat and another in a nonhostile incident.
The soldier killed in combat Tuesday was assigned to Regimental Combat Team 7; the other who died was a Marine with the Marine Aviation Logistics Squadron 11.
The deaths raised the number of U.S. troops killed in October to 105, the fourth-highest monthly total since the war began.