Who might be behind kidnap of several Americans in Iraq?

U.S. and Iraqi authorities were searching for three missing Americans said to have been kidnapped in southern Baghdad, the latest group of foreign nationals abducted in recent months.

The abducted Americans were apparently taken to another area, the colonel said, as Dura was searched and they were not found.

It is there that the three Americans are reported to have been abducted by armed men in military uniforms, after visiting the interpreter’s house.

There were no immediate claims of responsibility for the kidnapping. The individuals were then taken to Sadr city, the official said, “after [the kidnapping] all communications and contact stopped in Sadr city”.

Citing an unnamed official, CNN said the missing Americans were contractors and a company reported them missing recently.

The general described the kidnappers as Shiite militiamen, a group of Islamist hardliners also suspected in the massacre of almost 30 women at a Baghdad brothel in July 2014.

Mr Bolz did not identify the missing Americans or say what they were doing in Iraq.

‘The kidnapping of the American citizens yesterday, and before them the Qatari hunters, whose fate is still unknown, without a doubt indicates the increasing work of organised gangs in Iraq, ‘ Juburi said in a statement.

The predominately Sunni Muslim district was a bastion of the insurgency against the 2003 USA invasion and the site of intense sectarian bloodletting that peaked around 2006-07.

Iraqi security officials first reported on Sunday that three American citizens and an Iraqi translator had been kidnapped from southern Baghdad two days earlier.

The US is leading a multinational coalition that is conducting air strikes on IS in Iraq and Syria, and providing training and advice to Iraqi government forces.

The radical Sunni militants of Islamic State have maintained a limited presence in Baghdad, regularly claiming bomb attacks against Shi’ite neighbourhoods. Unchecked, continued brazen shows of Shiite militia power in the Iraqi capital could further undermine the already weak leader.