US troops missing after five killed in ambush

Published on Sunday 13 May 2007 01:13

A GROUP of US soldiers were missing in Iraq last night after their patrol was ambushed in an attack that killed five of them.

Seven soldiers and an Iraqi army interpreter had been patrolling a Sunni insurgent area south of Baghdad.

The military refused to specify whether the Iraqi interpreter was among those killed or among the missing, citing security.

Troops were searching for the missing, using drone planes, jets and checkpoints throughout the area. Soldiers were also approaching local leaders for information.

The attack occurred at 4.44am about 12 miles west of Mahmoudiya, the military said, adding that nearby units heard explosions and a drone plane observed two burning vehicles 15 minutes later.

Mahmoudiya is about 20 miles south of Baghdad in an area known as the Triangle of Death because of frequent insurgent attacks.

Troops who arrived at the scene about an hour after the attack found five of the soldiers dead. The other three members of the patrol were gone, according to Major General William Caldwell, the chief US military spokesman in Iraq.

"Make no mistake: we will never stop looking for our soldiers until their status is definitively determined, and we continue to pray for their safe return," Caldwell said.

An Iraqi army officer said joint US-Iraqi forces were conducting house-to-house searches in the area and all roads to Mahmoudiya had been closed.

The attack occurred nearly a year after two American soldiers went missing following a June 16 attack in the same area, prompting a massive search. Their bodies were found tied together with a bomb between one victim's legs several days later.

Two other US soldiers remain missing in action from the current conflict: Sergeant Matt Maupin, of Ohio, missing since April 2004; and Ahmed Qusai al-Taayie, a 41-year-old Iraqi-born reserve soldier from Ann Arbor, Michigan, who was abducted while visiting his Iraqi wife in Baghdad on October 23.

US Captain Michael Speicher, a Navy pilot, has been missing since the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

Meanwhile, a US study has found that billions of dollars worth of Iraq's declared oil production over the past four years is unaccounted for, possibly having been siphoned off through corruption or smuggling.

Between 100,000 and 300,000 barrels of Iraq's daily output of roughly two million barrels is missing, according to a draft report prepared by the US Government Accountability Office and government energy analysts, which is expected to be released next week.

The discrepancy was valued between $5m (2.5m) and $15m (7.6m) daily, the report said. That adds up to billions of dollars over the four years since the March 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq.

The GAO declined to discuss the draft.