BAGHDAD (AP):
AN IRAQI farmer said yesterday that he saw seven heavily armed gunmen capture two American soldiers during an attack on a road checkpoint south of Baghdad, while United States troops search for their comrades for a second day.
The White House promised to do everything it could to find the soldiers and said it had a message for anybody who may have taken the two men: "Give them back."
Gunmen, meanwhile, kidnapped 10 bakery workers in northern Baghdad, and four people were killed in a mortar attack on a house elsewhere in the capital.
Iraqi police also found 17 bodies in and around Baghdad yesterday, including those of four women and a teenager who were handcuffed and shot in the head - apparently the latest victims of death squads that plague the
capital and other areas.
Despite the embarrassing setbacks to his plan to restore security in the capital, Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki pressed forward with a plan to implement a new national reconciliation plan.
But his proposal, which would include a limited pardon for insurgents according to a draft copy obtained by The Associated Press, has been delayed by stark differences on the issue among Iraq's ethnic and sectarian groups, legislators said yesterday.
TRIANGLE OF DEATH
U.S. troops, backed by helicopters and warplanes, fanned out across the 'Triangle of Death' south of Baghdad searching for the missing servicemen, but the military offered no new information after saying Saturday that at least four raids had been carried out.
U.S. Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, the spokesman for U.S. forces in Iraq, also said Saturday that a dive team would searching for the men, whose checkpoint was near a Euphrates River canal not far from Youssifiyah, 20 kilometres (12 miles) south of Baghdad. The Sunni region is the site of frequent ambushes of U.S. soldiers and Iraqi troops.
White House spokesman Tony Snow also said he could not confirm reports that the two men were abducted, but he told 'Fox News Sunday' that anybody who was holding them should "give them back."
Local residents said soldiers were raiding houses and arresting people yesterday and one man said the Americans were promising a US$100,000 reward for any information leading to the missing soldiers.
Ahmed Khalaf Falah, a farmer who said he witnessed the attack Friday, said three Humvees were manning a checkpoint when they came under fire from many directions. Two Humvees went after the assailants, but the third was ambushed before it could move, he told AP.
P>Seven masked gunmen, including one carrying what Falah described as a heavy machine gun, killed the driver of the third vehicle, then took the two other U.S. soldiers captive, the witness said. His account could not be verified independently.
Falah said tensions were high in the area as U.S. soldiers raided some houses and arrested men. He also said the Americans were setting up checkpoints on all roads leading to the area of the attack and helicopters were hovering at low altitudes.
Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari also said the soldiers appeared to have been taken prisoner by insurgents.
"Hopefully they will be found and released as soon as possible," he said on CNN's 'Late Edition'.
The U.S. military said only that coalition and Iraqi forces were continuing the search and "will continue to use every resource available."
A Youssifiyah resident, who said his house was searched by U.S. soldiers yesterday afternoon, also said the Americans were using translators to offer US$100,000 for information leading to those who took the soldiers.
He said he would not cooperate.
"I will not do it even if they pay one million dollars," the resident said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he feared retribution. "They deserve all that they are facing ... we are living hard life because of them."
The two soldiers were the first to go missing in the Iraq war since Sgt. Keith M. Maupin, of Batavia, Ohio, was captured on April 9, 2004, when insurgents ambushed his fuel convoy west of Baghdad. A week later, Arab television network Al-Jazeera aired a videotape showing Maupin sitting on the floor surrounded by five masked men holding automatic rifles.
