Attack on US patrol in Iraq: 5 dead, 3 missing

US soldiers from 2nd Batallion, 1st Marines, stand on a bridge over a highway inspecting a plume of black smoke on the outskirts of the Sunni Muslim city of Fallujah in this AFP file photo

BAGHDAD, Saturday (Reuters) - Seven U.S. soldiers and an Iraqi army interpreter were attacked during a patrol in an al Qaeda stronghold south of Baghdad today. Five were killed and three are missing, the U.S. military said.

The attack, one of the worst against American ground forces since a U.S.-backed security crackdown began in Baghdad three months ago, took place near the town of Mahmudiya, in the same area where two U.S. soldiers were abducted by al Qaeda insurgents last year before their mutilated bodies were found. U.S. forces launched a search operation for the missing soldiers, using helicopters, unmanned drones and jets and setting up checkpoints in the area.

U.S. spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Christopher Garver said it was not immediately clear if the Iraqi army translator was among the dead or missing. “This morning at 4:44 a.m. (0044 GMT) in Iraq, a coalition force team of eight soldiers (seven Americans and an Iraqi army interpreter), were attacked 12 miles west of Mahmudiya. As a result of this attack, five soldiers were killed in action and three are currently missing,” a U.S. military statement said.

Residents in Mahmudiya, an area of orchards and palm groves that is a bastion of Sunni Arab militants including al Qaeda, said gunmen wearing Iraqi army uniforms had stopped a U.S. patrol comprised of three Humvees at a fake checkpoint before attacking the soldiers, an Iraqi army source told Reuters.

Last June, al Qaeda militants abducted two U.S. soldiers in nearby Yusufiya in an attack on a U.S. checkpoint in which a third U.S. soldier was killed. The mutilated and booby-trapped bodies of the two U.S. soldiers were found days later.

Major-General William Caldwell, chief military spokesman for U.S. forces in Iraq, was quoted in a statement as saying that 15 minutes after today’s explosion a U.S. drone observed two burning vehicles. A rapid-reaction force arrived in the area one hour after the attack, Caldwell said.