5 Troops Killed in Iraq, U.S. Reports

The U.S. military today announced the deaths of five American military personnel in three separate incidents over the last two days.

Four U.S. Marines died in Iraq’s volatile Al Anbar province on Tuesday, the military said. Three were killed when their vehicle hit a makeshift bomb. Another “died after being attacked while conducting security operations,” said a press release.

A U.S. Army soldier serving with the division overseeing the capital died Wednesday morning south of Baghdad when his vehicle struck a roadside bomb, the military said.

Also Wednesday, gunmen abducted scores of workers who were boarding buses at a factory just outside the Iraqi capital. Some of the workers, including all the women, were released a short time later, but between 50 and 60 remained unaccounted for late in the day, police said.

The mass abduction took place in the town of Taji, about 20 miles north of Baghdad, as employees of the state-owned Nasr Adeem Co. were waiting to be driven to their homes in poor Shiite Muslim districts of northern and eastern Baghdad. The company manufactures housing components such as windows and door frames.

Witnesses told police that armed men in minibuses suddenly showed up and hustled at least 80 workers away.

On Monday, the U.S. Army formally handed control of much of the area around Taji to the Iraqi army’s 9th Mechanized Division.

Armed abductions of Iraqis and foreigners, for financial gain or as part of sectarian violence, have terrorized the country.

On Wednesday, an Internet posting signed by a group linked to Al Qaeda in Iraq threatened to kill four Russian diplomats held hostage since earlier this month.

The Mujahedin Shura Council, the same group that claimed responsibility for the abductions and slayings of two U.S. soldiers whose bodies were found south of Baghdad on Monday, said it would kill the Russians because Moscow had failed to meet its demand for an end to military operations in the restive Russian republic of Chechnya.

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Special correspondents contributed to this report.