Hunt on for 3 missing after ambush

The U.S. military mounted an intensive search Saturday for three members of a U.S. patrol missing after a predawn ambush by insurgents in a rebel stronghold southwest of Baghdad dubbed the “triangle of death.” Five other patrol members died in the ambush.

U.S. and Iraqi troops scoured the date palm orchards, fields of high reeds, and irrigation ditches along the Euphrates River, an agricultural region where two U.S. soldiers were abducted and slain last year. Helicopters and airplanes scanned the terrain, and the military erected checkpoints throughout the area in case captors tried to smuggle them out of the area.

Abductions of American troops are rare in Iraq. In addition to the two soldiers killed last year, an Iraqi American soldier, Ahmed Qusai Taei, was kidnapped in October in Baghdad. He is still missing. Also Staff Sgt. Keith M. Maupin of Batavia, Ohio, was seized in April 2004 in Baghdad. He has not been found. Insurgents claimed to have killed him, but the Army said a video purporting to offer proof was inconclusive.

According to a statement from Army Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV, seven U.S. soldiers and their Iraqi interpreter came under attack at 4:44 a.m. Saturday about 12 miles west of Mahmoudiya, a town 20 miles southwest of Baghdad.

Few details of the ambush were provided, but the brief description offered by Caldwell was chilling.

A nearby military unit heard loud explosions and tried to contact the patrol but could not. Within 15 minutes, an aerial drone spotted flaming wreckage where the patrol had been. The Army dispatched a Quick Reaction Force to the scene, where five bodies were found. The other three members were gone.

The military did not identify the dead or missing and did not say whether all five of those killed were Americans, or whether they included the interpreter.

“Make no mistake: We will never stop looking for our soldiers until their status is definitely determined,” Caldwell said.

During Saddam Hussein’s regime, high-ranking members of his Baath Party were rewarded with plots of land in the fertile district around Mahmoudiya and the nearby towns of Latifiya and Yousifiya. After the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003, the region developed into a hotbed of Sunni Muslim insurgents and was dubbed the “triangle of death” because of the frequency of attacks on American forces there.

Opposition to the U.S. presence sharpened after five American soldiers were charged in connection with the March 2006 rape and killing of a 14-year-old girl in Mahmoudiya. The girl’s parents and sister also were killed. One soldier was sentenced to 100 years in prison and another received a 90-year sentence. The other three are awaiting trial.

In June, insurgents attacked a U.S. checkpoint near Yousifiya, killing one soldier and taking two captive. Their bodies were found three days later, mutilated and booby-trapped with explosives. An insurgent group declaring loyalty to Al Qaeda claimed responsibility.

The latest deaths, along with a separate one reported by the U.S. military, brought to at least 3,394 the number of U.S. forces killed in Iraq since the start of the war in 2003, according to icasualties.org, which tracks war-related deaths and injuries.

A military statement said that in addition to the incident outside Mahmoudiya, a soldier died of injuries after a roadside bombing Friday in Iskandariya, 25 miles south of Baghdad.

Last week, Army Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch of the 3rd Infantry Division, commander of troops along Baghdad’s southern belt, said Al Qaeda was the biggest threat in the area.

“I’m worried about Al Qaeda, and as I talk to people inside the battle space, they’re all worried about Al Qaeda too,” Lynch said, referring to his area of command, which includes the “triangle of death.”

In comments to foreign journalists, Lynch sharply criticized the Iraqi government, echoing another U.S. general’s sentiment that lawmakers in Baghdad were slowing the country’s ability to emerge from its sectarian war.

Lynch predicted that by fall, security would be improving in his area of command, which includes four provinces south of Baghdad, but warned that this could have limited effect without progress on the political front.

“I don’t see that there is going to be significant progress on the government side between now and the fall,” he added. He noted in particular the government’s failure to organize fresh provincial elections, which are seen as crucial to curbing Sunni Arab resentment in areas ruled by Shiite Muslims.

The imbalance resulted from a Sunni boycott of January 2005 elections, which led to provincial governments dominated by Shiites, even in areas with large Sunni populations. The Bush administration has said holding new elections to undo this imbalance is one of the benchmarks Iraq’s Shiite-led government must achieve to prove its commitment to national reconciliation.

Lynch is on his second deployment in Iraq.

“When we left last time, we were working to get provincial elections by the end of 2006, and here we are in 2007 and I don’t know when the provincial elections are going to be,” he said.

Provincial and local leaders with whom he meets regularly have “no confidence” in the national government, Lynch said. “They don’t believe the folks in Baghdad are truly concerned ... about the activity inside their provinces.”

On Friday, Army Maj. Gen. Benjamin R. “Randy” Mixon, whose area of command includes Diyala province north and east of Baghdad, another insurgent stronghold, also said the Iraqi government was hampering military attempts to secure the country.

“In a nutshell, it is the bureaucracy in Baghdad,” Mixon told reporters in Washington. “The ministries move too slow to provide support to their security forces, and also in the area of providing support to the governors. It is getting better, but it’s way too slow.”

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susman@latimes.com

A correspondent in Baghdad contributed to this report.