Three US citizens ‘missing’ in Baghdad – 1/17/2016 11:58:40 PM

“We are aware of reports that American citizens are missing in Iraq”, State Department spokesperson John Kirby told Fox News.

A State Department spokesman said it was working with Iraqi authorities to find the three.

Earlier, the pan-Arab news channel Al Arabiya reported that the Americans were kidnapped in Baghdad. Some local media reports said that Shiite militias had indeed abducted the Americans, but that news was not confirmed.

One U.S. official said the disappearance is being treated as “a possible kidnapping”, but the official was not aware of any reports of anyone witnessing that.

The officer said that according to information he had received, the kidnappers were militiamen wearing military uniforms.

Both American forces and Shia paramilitaries are battling IS, but relations between the two sides have been tense in light of fighting between them in the years after the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq.

The Islamic State group claimed a number of attacks in Baghdad and Diyala province last week that killed more than 50 people, including a high-profile attack on a mall in the Iraqi capital.

The men were grabbed by a group of gunmen from an apartment in Baghdad’s southeastern Dora neighborhood late Friday afternoon, the source said.