(CBS/AP) Gunmen kidnapped 10 young men from mostly Sunni Arab villages in northern Iraq on Thursday, but U.S. and Iraqi forces saved seven of them, police said. Three American soldiers were killed in separate attacks south of the capital.

The kidnapping drama occurred in two villages near Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad.

The attackers arrived in several cars and pickup trucks at about 6:30 a.m. and seized the 10 young men from their homes, but they were confronted by local sheiks and citizens, police said.

Iraqi and U.S. forces rushed to the scene and fierce fighting took place, with five gunmen wounded and 36 captured, police said. Three villagers also were injured.

Seven of the hostages were freed, but one vehicle escaped with the other three, police said.

The identities of the kidnappers were unclear, but they were believed to be a Shiite death squad. Police said some of the gunmen belonged to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's militia, the Mahdi Army.

The captors wore fake military uniforms or civilian clothes, and some carried false Health Ministry identification cards, police said.

In other developments:

Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's top Shiite cleric, ordered all Shiite mosques to close from Thursday to Sunday in a town in southern Iraq where a local Sunni Arab leader was killed. The order is to protest the sectarian killings as well as other attacks against Sunnis in mostly Shiite Basra province.

A Shiite history professor, Widad al-Shimri, and her 7-year-old daughter were slain as they drove Thursday through Baqouba, police said.

Five municipal street cleaners were killed and two others wounded in a blast in western Baghdad, police 1st Lt. Thaeir Mahmoud said.

On Wednesday, gunmen opened fire on a bus carrying Iraqi civilians to work, then planted a bomb aboard the vehicle that exploded when rescue workers arrived, an official said. In all, 11 Iraqis were killed and six wounded.

A suicide truck bomber hit a crowded public market in the northern city of Tal Afar late Tuesday, killing at least 17 people and wounding 35, police said. U.S. troops rushed to the scene to treat the injured, officials said. The attack occurred in the early evening in the center of Tal Afar, according to Col. Abdul-Karim Mohammed of the Nineveh provincial police, who gave the casualty figures.

Iraq's prime minister-designate said Tuesday the main stumbling blocks to forming a new Cabinet have been overcome and he expects to present his team to parliament for approval by the end of the week. Nouri al-Maliki said representatives of the country's political parties agreed on what factions would hold the "main posts" but were still discussing the distribution of "a few" of them, including the ministries of oil, trade and transportation, he said.

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©MMVI, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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