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Amid battle, troops search for hostages

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published November 19, 2006

BAGHDAD - Iraqi and American forces fought Sunni insurgents in an hourslong street battle Saturday in Baqubah, as residents fled indoors under the rattle of automatic weapons fire and the blasts of rocket-propelled grenades.

Elsewhere, coalition forces raided a Shiite militia stronghold in Baghdad searching for dozens of Iraqi hostages and combed through a rural area in southern Iraq where four American security contractors and an Austrian were kidnapped. Both efforts appeared to come up empty-handed.

In Baqubah, police said at least 18 people were killed and 19 wounded. Nationwide, officials said the death toll was 53, including those killed in Baqubah.

The city was chaotic following the fighting, and Baqubah's police media office said it was not known how many of the dead were Sunni insurgent fighters. No dead or wounded were reported among U.S. forces.

Violence in Baqubah, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, has skyrocketed in recent weeks, particularly after a major battle between Sunnis and Shiites in the nearby city of Balad last month.

In southern Iraq, coalition forces searched Saturday for five security guards - four Americans and an Austrian - who have been missing since Thursday when a convoy of trucks was hijacked on a highway near Safwan, a largely Sunni Arab city of 200,000 people on the Kuwait border.

Coalition forces and Iraqi officials reported no breakthrough in the case on Saturday. Officials at Crescent Security Group Inc. issued a statement on its Web site saying the men remain missing.

[Last modified November 19, 2006, 02:04:34]