Search for missing troops

BAGHDAD — An al Qaeda front group said yesterday it had captured American soldiers in a deadly attack the day before, as thousands of U.S. troops searched insurgent areas south of Baghdad for their three missing comrades.

The statement was issued on one of the deadliest days in the country in recent weeks, with at least 126 persons killed or found dead — including two American soldiers who died in separate bombings. A suicide truck bomb tore through the offices of a Kurdish political party in northern Iraq, killing 50 persons, and a car bombing in a crowded Baghdad market killed 17.

Troops surrounded the town of Youssifiyah and told residents over loudspeakers to stay inside, residents said. They then methodically searched the houses, focusing on possible secret chambers under the floors where the soldiers might be hidden, residents said. The soldiers marked each searched house with a white piece of cloth.

Soldiers also searched cars entering and leaving the town, writing “searched” on the side of each vehicle they had inspected. Several people were arrested, witnesses said.

The terror group, calling itself the Islamic State of Iraq, offered no proof for its claim that it was behind the attack Saturday in Mahmoudiya that killed four U.S. soldiers and an Iraqi translator. But the Sunni area known as the Triangle of Death is a longtime al Qaeda stronghold.

If the claim proves true, it would mark one of the most brazen attacks by the umbrella Sunni insurgent group against U.S. forces here.

Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, spokesman for the U.S. military, said 4,000 U.S. troops backed by aircraft and intelligence units were scouring the farming area as the military made “every effort available to find our missing soldiers.”

President Bush was also getting regular updates on the missing soldiers, said Gordon Johndroe, a spokesman for the White House’s National Security Council in Washington.

The early-morning attack on two U.S. military vehicles outside Mahmoudiya, about 20 miles south of Baghdad, left the bodies of the four U.S. soldiers and their translator badly burned.

Gen. Caldwell said the bodies of the interpreter and three of the slain soldiers had been identified, but the military was still working to identify the fifth.

Later yesterday, the Islamic State of Iraq posted a brief message on a militant Web site saying it was responsible for the attack and held an unspecified number of U.S. soldiers. The group promised more details later.

The Islamic State is a coalition of eight insurgent groups. Late last month, it named a 10-member “Cabinet” complete with a “war minister,” an apparent attempt to present the Sunni coalition as an alternative to the U.S.-backed, Shi’ite-led administration of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

U.S. military officials said they had no indication of who was behind Saturday’s attack.

“It’s difficult to verify anything that al Qaeda in Iraq would say because they lie,” said Lt. Col. Christopher Garver, a military spokesman. However, “it would not surprise us if it were al Qaeda behind this, because we’ve seen this type of attack, this type of tactic, before.”

Terrorists also staged attacks across the country yesterday, with a suicide bomber in northern Iraq slamming a truck into local offices of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, which is headed by Massoud Barzani, leader of the autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq.

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