Al Qaeda says holding US soldiers in Iraq

BAGHDAD, May 13 (Reuters) Thousands of American troops searched today for three US soldiers missing in Iraq after an ambush in which al Qaeda said it seized ''crusader'' forces, while a suicide bomber killed 50 people in the Kurdish north.

The self-styled Islamic State in Iraq, a group led by al Qaeda, said in an Internet posting it was holding soldiers who survived an attack south of Baghdad in which the US military said four U.S.

troops and an Iraqi army translator were killed.

That attack and the suicide truck bombing came as President George W Bush deploys 30,000 more US troops due in Iraq in June in what is seen as a final push to halt a slide into all-out civil war between majority Shi'ites and Sunni Arabs.

Last June, al Qaeda abducted two US soldiers in the same area where the patrol of seven US soldiers and one Iraqi army interpreter were ambushed yesterday. Their badly mutilated bodies were found days later.

In another sign of a cautious diplomatic rapprochement between Iran and the United States, the two countries said they would hold talks in Baghdad aimed at stabilising Iraq.

The White House said US and Iranian officials would meet in the next few weeks. The American Ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, will head the US team.

Talks between Shi'ite Iran and the United States, which accuses Tehran of supplying and training Shi'ite militia in Iraq, are rare.

The two countries, at loggerheads over Iran's nuclear programme, have not had diplomatic ties for more than a quarter century. Iran denies charges it stirs trouble in Iraq.

''TRIANGLE OF DEATH'' As US-led troops backed by helicopters and jets combed the rural area south of the capital known as the Sunni ''Triangle of Death'', a truck bomb killed 50 people and wounded 70 in the northern town of Makhmour, the governor said. It was the second attack against Kurdish areas in Iraq in four days.

Kurdish political parties were targeted, police said.

Makhmour is just outside the autonomous Kurdish region, but Kurds want to include it in the region in a future settlement.

A truck bomb on Wednesday in the city of Arbil, capital of Kurdistan, killed 15 people and wounded more than 100 in an attack claimed by al Qaeda that sparked fears violence engulfing much of Iraq was spreading to the relatively peaceful region.

In a statement, Islamic State in Iraq claimed responsibility for the attack on the U.S. patrol, but it provided no proof.

''God has enabled your brothers at the Islamic State in Iraq on Saturday ... to clash with a crusader patrol in Mahmudiya area at the southern part of Baghdad,'' it said.

''Some were detained and some were killed,'' it said without giving numbers. ''We will provide the full details of this blessed operation as soon as they are available.'' Major-General William Caldwell, chief spokesman for the US military in Iraq, told a news conference US troops would make ''every effort available to find our three missing soldiers.'' Residents said the patrol was ambushed by insurgents after it struck a roadside bomb on a rural road in an area of palm groves called Shibaiya, near the town of Yusufiya.

''We saw smoke rise from the area. Three vehicles were on fire and a fourth one had fallen into a canal,'' said a farmer.

Duraid Kashmula, governor of Nineveh province, said the huge blast in Makhmour killed 50 and wounded 70. He said it targeted a government compound that also houses a Kurdish party office.

Other security sources said the KDP was having a local meeting at the time. The KDP is the party of Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani.

The explosion left a huge crater and several buildings in ruins.

Nearby, a dazed and bloodied security guard stood on pile of rubble, while a bloody sandal and a broken AK-47 rifle lay in the street.

Reuters MP DB2251