Iraqi police chief missing south of Baghdad-police

BAGHDAD, July 18 (Reuters) A senior Iraqi police officer and five bodyguards went missing today during clashes in a town south of Baghdad, police said.

Lieutenant-Colonel Salam Shanoun, police chief of Iskandiriya, a restive, religiously mixed town 40 km south of the capital, disappeared during fighting between gunmen and Iraqi security forces which wounded at least seven people.

One badly wounded bodyguard has been found and security forces are searching the town, police said.

At least four suspected insurgents were killed in the clashes in the Mwelha district, a Sunni stronghold, following attacks on Shi'ites who live nearby.

A US military spokeswoman said US forces had not been involved in the fighting but had been told by local police that Shanoun appeared to have been kidnapped.

US and Iraqi security forces launched a big operation in the area this week against a safe haven of suspected Sunni al Qaeda militants who have used the nearby Euphrates river valley to smuggle fighters and weapons into southern Baghdad.

REUTERS SM PM1835