Baghdad, Iraq – U.S. troops have detained hundreds of Iraqis, including four wanted suspected insurgents, and dropped thousands of leaflets from airplanes, promising up to $200,000 in reward money for help in recovering three missing American soldiers captured Saturday by suspected Islamic radicals, U.S. Army officers said Tuesday.
At least 460 people had been held for questioning, although an undisclosed number have been released, the U.S. military said. More than 4,000 U.S. forces continued to sweep the orchards and farmland around Mahmudiyah, 20 miles south of Baghdad.
Eleven detainees have been identified as possessing valuable information, including the four suspected insurgent leaders, who had been sought before Saturday’s ambush.
“We have conducted more than 460 tactical interviews and detained 11 individuals. Four of them are considered high-value targets,” said U.S. military spokesman Army Lt. Col. Christopher Garver.
“High-value targets” is a U.S. military term for alleged leaders of militant groups, bombmakers, tacticians and other insurgents.
Garver said it was not clear whether the four were connected to Saturday’s ambush 10 miles west of Mahmudiyah, which killed four U.S. soldiers and their Iraqi army interpreter.
The seven American troops ambushed were members of the 10th Mountain Division’s 2nd Brigade Combat Team based at Fort Drum, N.Y., Army officials in Iraq said Tuesday.
U.S. military officials said they believe the Islamic State of Iraq, an insurgent umbrella group linked to al-Qaeda, is holding the soldiers.
“We pray they are still alive so we can return them to their loved ones,” said U.S. Army Lt. Col. Randy Martin, spokesman for the military command policing Baghdad’s volatile southern belt, a sanctuary of Sunni armed groups.
U.S. soldiers have come under sporadic small-arms fire during their manhunt in the region. One soldier was wounded in the skirmishes, Martin said.
As of Tuesday, at least 3,398 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
