American and Iraqi soldiers raided a Shiite stronghold in Baghdad on Saturday, searching for dozens of men abducted from an Iraqi government office. They also looked for four US security contractors missing in an attack on their convoy in southern Iraq.
Iraqi troops backed by American helicopters swept through the Sadr City section of Baghdad, the AP reported. Iraqi police said three civilians were wounded.
In southern Iraq, US and British forces searched for four Americans and one Austrian missing since Thursday when their Kuwait-based security convoy was hijacked, said U.S. Embassy spokesman Michael McClellan. Islamic Companies, a previously unknown group, claimed responsibility for the kidnapping, according to an Iranian-run Arabic-language satellite news station. It said the group released a videotaped message saying it was holding the five men and demanded the pullout of American troops from Iraq and the release of all prisoners being held there.
Elsewhere, the U.S. military killed 11 "insurgents" and detained 24 suspects in raids in and around the Iraqi cities of Tikrit, Baqouba, Hit, Youssifiyah and Baghdad.
In Baqouba, fierce fighting between armed fighters and U.S. and Iraqi forces were reported. Three Iraqi policemen were killed and three wounded.
Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Saturday reiterated Washington's determination to support the "small seeds" of Iraqi democracy, but noted that success depends on the government and people of Iraq themselves.
It is up to Iraqis to "face up to their differences and realize that they only have one future, and that's a future together," Rice said at the Asia-Pacific summit in Vietnam. "They don't have a future if they try and stay apart."
