Al Qaeda Says it Has Missing U.S. Troops

BAGHDAD – An al-Qaida front group announced Sunday it had captured American soldiers in a deadly attack the day before, as thousands of U.S. troops searched insurgent areas south of Baghdad for their three missing comrades.

The statement came on one of the deadliest days in the country in recent weeks, with at least 137 people killed or found dead. A suicide truck bomb tore through the offices of a Kurdish political party in northern Iraq, killing 50 people, and a car bombing in a crowded Baghdad market killed another 17.

The Islamic State in Iraq offered no proof for its claim that it was behind the attack Saturday in Mahmoudiya that killed four U.S. soldiers and an Iraqi translator and left three soldiers missing. But the Sunni area known as the “triangle of death” is a longtime al-Qaida stronghold. }} more…