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Farmer says gunmen took missing soldiers

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published June 19, 2006

BAGHDAD - The U.S. military combed through the "Triangle of Death," a predominantly Sunni Arab region south of the capital for a second day Sunday looking for two soldiers missing since an attack Friday on a traffic checkpoint that also killed one of their comrades.

Ahmed Khalaf Falah, a farmer, said three Humvees were manning the missing soldiers' checkpoint when they came under fire from many directions. Two of the vehicles went after the assailants, but the third was ambushed before it could move, he told the Associated Press.

Seven masked gunmen killed the driver of the third vehicle, then took the two other U.S. soldiers captive, the farmer said.

Meanwhile, gunmen seized 10 workers from a bakery in a predominantly Shiite neighborhood in Baghdad, while a car bomb exploded near a university in the northern city of Mosul, killing a woman and wounding 19 other people, police said.

A small parked truck bomb exploded in southwestern Baghdad, killing three people inside the vehicle, police said.

In Baqouba, north of Baghdad, gunmen killed three people, including one carrying an Iranian passport, police said.

Thousands of U.S. and Iraqi troops also set up outposts Sunday west of Baghdad as part of an operation to establish Iraqi army bases in the volatile Sunni Arab city of Ramadi.

In Baghdad, gunmen arrived in two cars, broke into the bakery and abducted the 10 workers in the northern suburb of Kazimiyah, police Lt. Mohammed Khayoun said.

Police also found the bullet-riddled bodies of 10 men in Baghdad, and the body of a man who was shot in the head was found in Karbala.

Also Sunday, Australian Prime Minister John Howard said Australian troops will still have a role in Iraq after foreign forces hand over security to Iraqi forces in the country's south, indicating his country's troops would not be brought home soon.

[Last modified June 19, 2006, 05:39:39]