The search is on. About 4,000 American soldiers are searching for three of their fellow troops missing near Mahmoudiya in the “Triangle of Death:”

Thousands of U.S. soldiers searched Sunday for three Americans who were missing after their patrol came under attack in an explosion that killed four of their comrades and an Iraqi army translator…

…The Islamic State in Iraq, an al-Qaida front group, said it had captured several soldiers in the attack, but offered no proof to back up its claim, posted on an Islamic Web site.

The search for the missing Americans began after insurgents attacked a patrol of seven U.S. soldiers and an Iraqi interpreter before dawn Saturday near Mahmoudiya.

The U.S. military said Saturday that five people were dead and three were missing.

On Sunday, U.S. spokesman Maj. Gen. William Caldwell confirmed that the Iraqi interpreter was among the dead — and that all the missing were Americans. He said about 4,000 U.S. troops were involved in the search.

Caldwell said the bodies of the three slain soldiers and the Iraqi interpreter had been identified, but the military was still working to identify the fifth.

“Everybody is fully engaged, the commanders are intimately focused on this, every asset we have from national assets to tactical assets … are being used … to locate these three missing soldiers,” Caldwell said.

Jawa Report has video of the Army news conference describing the attack and notes:

The attack came in the same area where last summer two American soldiers were kidnapped and murdered. The bodies of Pfc. Kristian Menchaca and Pfc. Thomas Tucker were found mutilated and booby-trapped in June 2006.

Two other American soldiers remain missing in Iraq: Sgt. Matt Maupin, who was captured in April 2004, and Spc. Ahmed Qusai al-Taayie, an interpreter who was kidnapped in Baghdad in October 2006.

We mourn the loss of the five soldiers who were killed and we pray for the safety of the three [now] missing, as well as for those troops involved in the search and rescue efforts going on now.

One of Blackfive’s readers, rgrmom, is affected.