Forces surround Iraqi town amid mass kidnap claims

Iraqi security forces, backed by US military, swept into a town south of Baghdad at dawn today after reports Sunni militants had kidnapped as many as 100 Shiites.

But residents and Sunni clerics said the reports had been grossly exaggerated by government officials bent on re-establishing control in the lawless region the US military has called the “Triangle of Death” because it has become a stronghold of the militant Sunni insurgency.