A Sunni who said he was among those abducted and released claimed his arm was broken by the kidnappers. He said he saw them kill at least three hostages after taking them to empty houses in Baghdad's Sadr City Shiite slum, a stronghold of the Mahdi Army.

The man, who goes by the name Abu Kadhim, or father of Kadhim, would not allow use of his full name for fear of further trouble with the Mahdi Army, which he blamed for his torture and 2 1/2 days in captivity. He disputed Khalaf's claim that police had freed the kidnap victims.

"Thursday, they just opened the doors and dragged us into trucks. Then they dumped us on Canal Street," Abu Kadhim said. That street runs along the Army Canal just west of Sadr City.

"I was lucky," he said. "They only beat me with a wooden club. Others were handcuffed and hanged from the ceiling by their wrists. They were beaten with iron bars. Others, building guards, had cotton shoved in their mouths and tape wound around their heads. They suffocated. One was shot in the back. The managers in the building and people with higher degrees, masters and doctorates, were in a different room. I could hear them screaming like women. Then it was quiet. I think they died."

Abu Kadhim's story could not be independently confirmed. He was interviewed by telephone.

In Thursday's deadliest attack in the capital, gunmen fired on a bakery, killing nine people, police said. Such attacks are usually carried out by Sunni militants since most bakeries in the capital are run by Shiites.

The US military announced that three Task Force Lightning soldiers assigned to 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, were killed Wednesday in Diyala province northeast of Baghdad, one by small arms fire and two by a roadside bomb. A soldier from the Army's Multinational Corps-Iraq was killed Tuesday by small arms fire during an operation in Baghdad.

The deaths raised the number of American war dead to 2,862. So far this month in Iraq, 44 American service members have been killed or died.

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