The United States has confirmed that 12 soldiers and at least one aircraft are missing in southern Iraq.

Officials at the U.S. Central Command in Doha, Qatar believe the troops may have been lured into a trap by Iraqi soldiers pretending to surrender.

The scenes of interrogators questioning four men and a woman were broadcast Sunday by the Arab satellite station Al-Jazeera with footage from state-controlled Iraqi television. The footage also showed at least four bodies.

A senior defense official said the Pentagon did not know precisely how many captives there might be, and declined to identify the unit involved so as not to panic the soldiers