BAGHDAD, June 8: Twenty-two Iraqi soldiers were kidnapped near the Syrian border, an Iraqi military source said on Wednesday as four US soldiers were killed in less than 24 hours in attacks north of the capital. With no let-up in the targeting of the country’s fledgling security forces, senior Iraqi Shia leader Abdul Aziz al-Hakim demanded that the armed wing of his party play a greater role in hunting down insurgents, who have also singled out the country’s majority Shia community for attacks.

The soldiers, all Shias from the south, were nabbed by armed men in Rawa, about 250 kilometres west of Baghdad, after they had left their base, said the military source, adding that nothing had been heard from them since.

Rawa is in the predominantly Sunni Arab Al-Anbar province that has seen several incidents of kidnapping and mass killing of Iraqi soldiers in the past.

In early March the bullet-riddled bodies of at least 30 members of the security forces were found on the banks of the Euphrates near Qaim, another border town in the restive province.—AFP