A witness said the Shiites were taken away by men near the town of Tarmiyah, where cars were slowed by backed-up traffic. Unarmed men, he said, went along the row of vehicles demanding to see identification cards as armed men stood nearby, just out of sight of U.S. soldiers who were disarming a roadside bomb.

The witness, who asked to be identified only by the pseudonym Abu Omar for fear of reprisals, said the men appeared to be picking out specific people, but allowed him and other Sunni travelers to proceed.

A U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad said American forces had been disarming roadside bombs near Tarmiyah at the time, but received no reports of abductions.

There is deep frustration within the Iraqi government over the failure to tackle the daily kidnappings, killings and political violence.

On Wednesday, a fight broke out between Sunni politicians in parliament, where Speaker Mahmoud al-Mashhadani accused other Sunni lawmakers of corruption and of stalling ratification of a religious edict intended to end sectarian clashes.

Al-Mashhadani was holding a news conference to condemn lawmakers for failing to show up for a vote when he suddenly shouted at a rival lawmaker in the audience, Abdel-Karim al-Samarie, a member of the main Sunni parliamentary bloc, the Iraqi Accordance Front.

"You did not attend (parliament) because of your corrupt political affiliation," al-Mashhadani screamed, adding: "You are dishonest and a dog" - a deep insult in Iraq and other Arab societies.

Al-Samarie responded by calling al-Mashhadani a false patriot. The speaker, who belongs to a rival Sunni group - The National Dialogue Council - lunged at al-Samarie and tried to punch him, but was held back by bodyguards.

Elsewhere in the capital, a roadside bomb exploded on Iraq's most heavily guarded Tigris River bridge, seriously wounding Judge Naeim al-Equeli, a Shiite who was the top jurist for courts in western Baghdad. Two people in his convoy were killed and two others were wounded.

The US military reported the deaths of two service members on Tuesday in Anbar province, an insurgent stronghold.

A total of 105 American service members died in Iraq in October, the fourth deadliest month since the Iraq war began in March 2003. There have been only three months in which more US forces died in Iraq: 107 in January 2005; at least 135 in April 2004, and 137 in November 2004.

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