BAGHDAD, Iraq - Gunmen abducted two Americans and a Briton today in a brazen attack on a house in an upscale Baghdad neighborhood where many embassies and foreign companies are based, the Interior Ministry and witnesses said. It was the latest in a wave of kidnappings of foreigners in Iraq.

The three were employed by Gulf Services Company, a Middle East-based construction firm, and were seized from a two-story house surrounded by a wall in the al-Mansour neighborhood, said Col. Adnan Abdel-Rahman, a ministry official.

A U.S. Embassy spokesman speaking on condition of anonymity could not immediately confirm the report but said officials were taking the reports very seriously. A British diplomat in Baghdad was also unable to confirm any details.

Meanwhile today, a U.S. Humvee hit a roadside bomb south of the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah, the military said in a statement. Witnesses said the vehicle was ablaze on a main road near the city. There was no immediate word on casualties.

U.S. troops fanned out across the Baghdad neighborhood where the two Americans and Briton were kidnapped. Neighbors said they heard two vehicles drive up to the house around dawn and later noticed that the normally closed sliding iron gate was open, so they called the police. They said they didn't know who was living there.

A police official who asked not to be named said a car was missing from the house where the hostages were believed to have been kidnapped. He said the three were apparently in the garden when the attack took place and that there was no sign of any fighting.

It was not immediately clear whether the three worked as security guards or were involved in reconstruction projects.

A neighbor who would only give his name as Majid, 23, said he left his house around 6 a.m. amid a power outage to go turn on a generator.

"I noticed unusual movement in the garage. I heard voices that sounded like someone was trying to drag somebody else," he said. "I was frightened and left the area but when I came back to the foreigners' house I saw that the outer gate was open and the foreigners' car had gone."

Several foreign embassies, contracting and security companies and many prominent Iraqi politicians are based in the al-Mansour neighborhood, which is normally teeming with security guards.

Insurgents have kidnapped more than 100 foreigners in a bid to destabilize the interim authorities and drive coalition forces from the country. Many have been executed.

At least five Westerners are currently being held hostage in Iraq.

Two Italian women, Simona Pari and Simona Torretta, both 29, were abducted Sept. 7 by armed men from their offices in central Baghdad. They were working on school and water projects for the aid group "A Bridge To...". There is no word on their fate.

Two French reporters, Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot, were kidnapped last month by a militant group that demanded France rescind a ban on the wearing of headscarves in public schools. Paris refused and the law has already gone into effect.

An Iraqi-American, Aban Elias, 41, has been held since May 3 by group calling itself the Islamic Rage Brigade.

Today's kidnapping of the three men came a day after villagers found three decapitated bodies in the town of Dijiel, 25 miles north of Baghdad.

The bodies were found Wednesday in nylon bags, the heads in bags alongside them, said Col. Adnan Abdul-Rahman of the Interior Ministry. They were all men with tattoos, including one with the letter 'H' on his arm, but no documents were found on them, he said.

A U.S. military official said the bodies appeared to be Iraqis and had their hands tied behind their backs.

An Associated Press photographer saw the three corpses lined up with their heads by their sides on the floor at the guard compound before U.S. troops collected them and handed them over to police. Two wore jeans and shirts and the third wore sweat pants and a T-shirt. All appeared young.

Also Wednesday, militants released a Turkish man identified as Aytulla Gezmen, an Arabic language translator who was taken hostage in late July, according to a videotape obtained by Associated Press Television News. The Turkish Foreign Ministry confirmed he had been freed.

A Jordanian transport company said Wednesday it had ceased to operate in Iraq in the hope of winning the release of one of its drivers, Turki Simer Khalifeh al-Breizat, kidnapped by a separate militant group. The kidnappers gave the company 48 hours Tuesday to pull out.

The developments follow a surge in violence that has killed more than 200 people in the past four days in a brazen and coordinated campaign focused increasingly on the capital - the center of authority for Prime Minister Ayad Allawi and his American allies.