ARBIL (Thomson Financial) - Iraqi forces were assisting the US military in a massive manhunt for three US soldiers captured by an alliance of Al-Qaeda-led militant groups, as a suicide bomber killed at least 50 people in the northern Iraqi town of Makhmur.
An alliance of Al-Qaeda-led militant groups said it had captured a number of US soldiers in a deadly ambush south of Baghdad yesterday, according to a statement issued on an Islamist website today.
The self-proclaimed Islamic State in Iraq said its men clashed 'with a crusader patrol in the Mahmudiyah area in the south of Baghdad province, leading to the killing and capture of a number of them.'
The attack on an eight-strong patrol west of Mahmudiyah yesterday left four US soldiers and an Iraqi interpreter dead, according to the military, while US forces launched a massive manhunt for three missing troops.
Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih said to CNN during a visit to Washington: 'Iraqi troops are working and intelligence organizations are mobilized and working with the coalition in pursuit of these abducted soldiers.'
Meanwhile, a suicide bomber killed at least 50 people, many of them Kurdish officials, when he ploughed an explosives-laden SUV into administrative offices in the northern Iraqi town of Makhmur, officials said.
Police Brigadier General Mohammed Alwagaa told AFP from Mosul that at least 50 people had been killed in the blast, adding the total found dead at the scene to those who died en route to hospital in Kurdish territory.
'All the dead are men, but there are women and children among the 115 wounded,' Kurdish regional health minister Zirian Abdel Rahman told reporters, adding that many of the wounded were in serious condition.
Police said the bomber hit a compound housing Makhmur's local administration and the offices of two Kurdish political parties.
Makhmur is a mixed town on the border between the Kurdish region and Iraq's Nineveh province. Abdel Rahman said the compound was hosting a meeting of local officials when the attack took place.
The local offices of the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Kurdish leader Massud Barzani and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan of Iraqi President Jalal Talabani were hit, and many local officials were among the wounded, police said.
Kurdish parties and security forces have become a target of choice for Sunni Arab extremists, who accuse the minority population of collaborating with the US forces fighting Iraq's insurgency.
The US military also said it will send 3,000 more troops to a violence-ridden province northeast of Baghdad following a plea for reinforcements from the senior US commander in the area.
'There is a recognition clearly that up in Diyala there has been a uptick in the violence,' US spokesman Major General William Caldwell said at a press conference.
Caldwell said the number two US commander in Iraq, Lieutenant General Ray Odierno, had decided move an infantry brigade equipped with Stryker armoured vehicles to Diyala province.
Last week, Major General Benjamin Mixon, the commander of Multi-National Division North which oversees Diyala, requested more troops.
'I'm going to need additional forces in Diyala Province to get that situation to a more acceptable level so the Iraqi security forces will be able in the future to handle that,' Mixon told reporters on Friday.
The turbulent region to the north and east of Baghdad has seen several attacks recently, including a roadside bomb blast last week that killed six American soldiers and a Russian journalist. tf.TFN-Europe_newsdesk@thomson.com afp/cml COPYRIGHT Copyright AFX News Limited 2007. All rights reserved. The copying, republication or redistribution of AFX News Content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of AFX News.