Al-Qaida Claims Missing U.S. Soldiers Amid Rising Violence

Al -Qaida is claiming to have captured U.S. soldiers in Iraqi, after thousands of U.S. soldiers searched Sunday for three Americans who were missing. Their patrol came under attack in an explosion that killed four of their comrades and an Iraqi army translator.

The al-Qaida front group, The Islamic State in Iraq, said it had captured several soldiers in the attack, but are yet to offer proof to back up its claimposted on an Islamic Web site. There is no clear confirmation of the claim however, and many groups take false responsibility for kidnappings in Iraq via these web sites.

Insurgents attacked a patrol of seven U.S. soldiers and an Iraqi interpreter before dawn Saturday near Mahmoudiya. American military sources said Saturday that five people were dead and three were missing.

U.S. spokesman Maj. Gen. William Caldwell confirmed, Sunday, that the Iraqi interpreter was among the dead - and that all the missing were Americans.

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

"Everybody is fully engaged, the commanders are intimately focused on this, every asset we have from national assets to tactical assets ... are being used ... to locate these three missing soldiers," Caldwell said.

Gordon Johndroe, a spokesman for the White House's National Security Council, said President Bush has been getting regular updates on the missing soldiers.

More violence in Iraq

A suicide truck bombing in Makhmur, 30 miles south of Irbil, badly damaged the office of the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Massoud Barzani, That blast also killed the police chief and damaged the mayor's office. Ziryan Othman, the health minister of the Kurdish regional government, said at least 50 people were killed and 115 were wounded, including the city's mayor.

"Makhmur is an open, peaceful area, and al-Qaida is trying to destabilize it by causing fighting between Arabs and Kurds," an observer said.

Iraqi gunmen drove into the Diyala capital of Baqouba, on Sunday, pulled two handcuffed men out of the trunk and shot them to death - one in a bustling market full of people and the other near a movie theater, police and witnesses said.

"This is the destiny of traitors," the gunmen yelled shooting their victims.

Three civilians also were killed execution-style in a market in the city center, police said.