Sunni men killed in apparent retaliation for talking to Shiites; bomb kills 3 U.S. soldiers

(AP) Gunmen stormed the home of a Sunni family threatened with death for meeting with local Shiites, separating out the women and children and executing six men on Saturday, Iraqi police and military officials said. Also Saturday, three U.S. soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb that exploded while they were on patrol in central Baghdad, the military said.

Meanwhile, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, under mounting U.S. pressure to take greater responsibility for security, said he will reshuffle his Cabinet in coming days.

"The reshuffle will be either this week or next week," al-Maliki told The Associated Press in an interview in Baghdad's heavily protected Green Zone.

He also threatened to order the arrest of parliament members and other political leaders suspected of supporting extremists.

Also Saturday, a top adviser to Iraq's Defense Ministry was kidnapped in western Baghdad, said an aide to Adnan al-Dulaimi, the head of the largest Sunni bloc in parliament.

Lt. Gen. Thamir Sultan hails from Saddam Hussein's tribe and had been mentioned as a possible defense minister when the current government was organized last year. The aide spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information.

The execution-style attack near Youssifiyah, 12 miles south of the Iraqi capital, was apparently connected to rising sectarian violence that has included the claimed abduction and execution Friday of at least 14 members of the Shiite-led security forces. But in this case, Iraqi authorities said they believed Sunni gunmen had killed fellow Sunnis _ revealing a rift between those who support reconciliation with Shiites and those who will kill to stop it.

The men gunned down Saturday _ all relatives from the Mashhada tribe _ were killed after gunmen stormed the family's house at dawn, said police 1st Lt. Haider Satar.

Iraqi Army Capt. Ahmed al-Obeidi, whose unit is stationed near the site of the attack, confirmed the attack.

The bodies were transferred to a hospital morgue in the neighboring town of Mahmoudiyah, where Associated Press Television footage showed at least two had their hands tied bound behind their backs.

Police, citing information from surviving relatives, said the victims had received threats from Sunni insurgents after participating in a reconciliation conference with Shiites last month.

The U.S. military said Saturday that American warplanes bombed an area near Taji, on Baghdad's northern outskirts, killing "key terrorists" who were using anti-aircraft artillery to fire at military helicopters.

Lt. Col. Christopher Garver, a U.S. military spokesman, told The Associated Press that insurgents near Taji had been firing at U.S. helicopters with heavy machine guns mounted on the back of truck.

"It's mobile and it can inflict damage to our helicopters," Garver said. "Anything that can threaten our helicopters, we're going to try to get it off the battlefield," he said of the Friday air strike.

At least eight U.S. helicopters have crashed or been forced down by enemy fire this year, several near Taji. On Thursday, the U.S. military said an Army helicopter made a "hard landing" near Kirkuk, but an initial investigation blamed mechanical failure rather than hostile fire. Two pilots were injured.

In a separate raid in the Taji area on Saturday, nine suspected insurgents were captured, including two believed to be responsible for recruiting and helping foreign militants join the insurgency in Baghdad, the U.S. military said. The suspects were also accused of harboring al-Qaida in Iraq leaders, it said.

U.S. warplanes also struck a suspected car bomb factory Saturday in Arab Jabour, south of Baghdad, the military said. Seven suspected insurgents were killed when two precision-guided bombs destroyed the structure where they were hiding, the military said.

Earlier, the defense ministry said Iraqi troops killed three suspected militants in Khan Bani Saad, a mixed town northeast of Baghdad. Two men were arrested as well, the ministry said in a statement. Seven others were captured in Balad Ruz, 45 miles northeast of Baghdad, it said.

Meanwhile, U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad wrote in a commentary published Saturday that "resolving concerns about control of oil is central to overcoming internal divisions in Iraq."

Iraq's new oil law would "serve as a vehicle to unify" the country, Khalilzad wrote in The Washington Post.

"The goal of Iraq's leaders was to draft a law that ensured that all Iraqis could be confident they would receive their fair share of the benefits of developing the country's resources," he wrote.

Iraq's Cabinet has signed off on the law, and parliament will review it later this month.