An al-Qaida front group claims to have captured American soldiers in a deadly Iraq attack, as thousands of US troops searched insurgent areas south of Baghdad for their three missing comrades.

Al-Qaida-linked Sunni insurgents today claimed responsibility for the downing of a US military helicopter north west of Baghdad.

A suicide bomber detonated a belt of explosives on his body near a highly revered Shiite shrine in southern Iraq today, killing at least 35 people and injuring 122, the Iraqi army said.

A mortar barrage followed minutes later by a car bomb struck Baghdad’s upscale Karradah district today, killing 31 people and wounding 153, police said.

Violence was light but security heavy today as Iraqis voted for a new parliament that many hope brings a bigger political stake for the Sunni Arab minority blamed for the much of the insurgency.