Sunni gunmen kill 10, kidnap 50

The U.S. military offered a 50,000 reward for a kidnapped soldier.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Sunni gunmen ambushed a convoy of minibuses Saturday night on the dangerous highway south of Baghdad, killing 10 Shiite passengers and kidnapping about 50. Across the country, at least 52 other people died violent deaths or were found dead, five of them decapitated Iraqi soldiers.
The mass kidnapping and killing south of Baghdad occurred near the volatile town of Latifiyah, about 20 miles south of Baghdad in the so-called Triangle of Death, where Shiites and U.S. and Iraqi security forces have been repeatedly targeted.
The gunmen set up a false security checkpoint to stop the buses before the ambush, said an officer who asked that his name not be used for fear of reprisals.
Shiite Muslims, a minority in that district, have routinely come under attack from Sunni insurgents who control the territory. The highway passing through the region from Baghdad leads to Najaf, the holiest Shiite city in Iraq, and Shiite pilgrims have become a favorite target of Sunni gunmen.
Kidnapped soldier
In the capital, the U.S. military offered a 50,000 reward for an Iraqi-American soldier kidnapped nearly three weeks ago.
Qusai al-Taayie, a 41-year-old translator from Ann Arbor, Mich., was handcuffed and driven away by gunmen of a rogue Shiite militia while visiting his Iraqi wife during a visit to the woman's family Oct. 23.
Al-Taayie's uncle last week said he had received a demand of 250,000 from the kidnappers through an intermediary, but there was no word on further communications.
There were no reported deaths among America's 152,000 service men and women in Iraq on Saturday, as the U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad and Gen. George Casey, the top commander in Iraq, oversaw a Veterans Day ceremony at which 75 members of the armed forces from 33 countries were sworn in as American citizens.
In Baghdad, eight people died and at least 38 were wounded when two bombs hidden under parked cars exploded among noontime shoppers in downtown Baghdad's Hafidh al-Qadhi square. Police and a medical workers said at least 38 others were injured in the explosion at the formerly bustling area on the eastern bank of the Tigris River.
Soldiers killed
A Slovak soldier and Polish soldier were reported killed overnight by a roadside bomb. Slovakian defense ministry spokesman Vladimir Gemela said the two soldiers died when their vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb near Kut, 100 miles southeast of Baghdad where coalition troops have fought fighters with the Mahdi Army militia loyal to the radical anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
The deaths marked the 18th among Polish troops and fourth among those from Slovakia, which has about 100 troops in Iraq operating jointly with the 900 Polish troops in the country.
Slovakia's prime minister, Robert Fico, has said his country will pull its troops out of Iraq in February.
Baghdad police 1st Lt. Thayer Mahmud said his men found 25 corpses dumped in several parts of the capital in the 24 hours that began at 6 p.m. Friday.
A Samarra police captain, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he feared retribution, said the city morgue had received the beheaded bodies of five soldiers who were kidnapped last week in the Meshahda area, 20 miles north of the capital.
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