US and Iraqi troops kept up a massive search for three missing American soldiers in farmland south of Baghdad on Tuesday, despite warnings by al Qaeda that the hunt would put their safety at risk.
The soldiers, part of a larger unit sent to intercept roadside bombs in an area known as the "Triangle of Death", have been missing since an ambush on Saturday in which four other US soldiers and an Iraqi army translator were killed.
"We will continue to hope for the best ... we are not aware of any information that means we don't have any reason to hope for that," US military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Christopher Garver said.
US President George W. Bush is deploying 30,000 more US troops to Iraq in June in a last-ditch effort to stop a slide into sectarian civil war between Shias and Sunni Arabs. The move is meant to buy time for Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's government to approve national reconciliation laws that Washington says are crucial to ending violence.
An important step towards that goal was taken on Tuesday when a committee set up to reform Iraq's constitution said it had agreed on a draft, to be submitted to parliament next week. Garver said 460 "tactical questionings" had been conducted since the search began and 11 people had been detained.
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