Related Event: Iraq in Transition

At least eight militants were killed as hundreds of U.S. troops combed through an Iraqi village near the Syrian border Sunday.

Witnesses said many residents fled Sadah village into Syria before the offensive began, and the 1,000 U.S. troops involved appeared to be widening the sweep into two nearby towns.

A U.S. military spokeswoman in Baghdad said she could not immediately confirm that the offensive had expanded from Sadah to Karabila and Rumana.

No American casualties were reported in the offensive, which is aimed at rooting out al-Qaida militants the military believes have been using Sadah as a "sanctuary," closing insurgent supply routes and stemming violence ahead of Iraq's crucial vote on a new constitution on Oct. 15.

However, al-Qaida in Iraq claimed to have captured two U.S. Marines participating in the offensive and threatened in a Web statement issued Sunday to kill them within 24 hours.

The statement, posted on a Islamic militant Web forum and signed by al-Qaida in Iraq's spokesman, Abuy Maysara al-Iraqi, did not include any identifying images or details.

Its authenticity could not be verified.

A U.S. military spokesman said he believed the claim was false.

Also, a senior military commander said Sunday he was not backing off his assessment that U.S. forces in Iraq could be reduced early next year, even though an Army general has said the number of battle-ready battalions of Iraqi soldiers has fallen by two-thirds.

Appearing on NBC's "Meet the Press," Gen. John P. Abizaid did not offer a reason for the decrease in top-level Iraqi troops from three battalions to one.

But he said more Iraqis are in the field at various levels of training and are participating in security operations than before.

Elsewhere in Iraq, insurgents kidnapped the brother of Interior Minister Bayan Jabr, the Shiite official who heads police forces, in Baghdad on Saturday, and the son of another top ministry official was kidnapped north of the capital.

Jabr was visiting Amman, discussing ways to cooperate with Jordan against terrorism, when his brother was snatched late Saturday. The minister said Sunday the abduction ultimately targeted him.

Insurgents have vowed to derail the constitutional referendum and have launched a wave of violence that has killed at least 202 people — including 15 U.S. service members — in Iraq in the past seven days.

Two U.S. soldiers were killed by explosions while on patrols Saturday — one in Baghdad and another in Beiji, 155 miles north of the capital, the military said.

At least 1,935 U.S. service members have died since the Iraq war started in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

(Source: AP)