BAGHDAD (AP) – American forces pressed on Thursday with the search for five kidnapped Britons, and a procession of mourners marched through Sadr City behind a small bus carrying the coffins of two people who police said were killed in a U.S. helicopter strike before dawn.

The American military did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the alleged attack in the second day of a search for the Britons, who were abducted from a Finance Ministry data processing building in eastern Baghdad on Tuesday.

An American military statement, however, said American and Iraqi forces had arrested two “members of the secret cell terrorist network” on Thursday in Sadr City. There was no mention of fatalities.

Associated Press Television News video tape from Sadr City showed the coffins of the victims atop a small bus with men and women walking behind, with some of them women wailing and beating their chests. A young boy could be seen sitting next to the coffins on the bus.

A car near where the attack happened was punctured with big holes as if hit by an airstrike.

A police officer in Sadr City, who refused to allow use of his name because he feared retribution, said the helicopter hit a house and car at 4:30 a.m., killing two elderly people sleeping on the roof of their home, a common practice in the extreme heat of Iraq through late spring and summer. The officer said a 13-year-old boy was injured.

Also in Sadr City raids, which America has been conducting with a select unit of Iraqi army forces, Shiite cleric Abdul-Zahra al-Suwaidi claimed his home was raided and ransacked by American forces at 3 a.m. Thursday.

Mr. Al-Suwaidi, who runs the Sadr City political office of radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, said he was sleeping elsewhere at the time of the raid, expecting that he would be targeted. He said his home was badly damaged and a small amount of money was taken.

The American military also did not immediately comment on Mr. al-Suwaidi’s claim.

Dozens of American Humvees and Bradley fighting vehicles had taken up positions around Sadr City at nightfall Wednesday.

The Britons were snatched from a Finance Ministry facility in a mock police raid that Iraqi officials said was carried out by the Mahdi Army Shiite militia.

A secret incident report about the abductions – written by Najwa Fatih-Allah, director general of the Finance Ministry’s data processing center, where the Britons were seized – quotes General David Petraeus, the A,erocam commander in Iraq, as saying the Mahdi Army “will be profoundly sorry” if it carried out the assault.

Much of the Mahdi Army militia is said to be loyal to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who resurfaced last week after nearly four months in hiding, apparently in Iran, and demanded U.S. troops leave Iraq.

Mr. al-Sadr’s return appeared to be partly an effort to regain control over his militia, which had begun fragmenting. It was unclear whether the 33-year-old cleric would have been aware of or condoned the kidnapping of the five British citizens – four bodyguards and an employee of a management consulting firm.

When Mr. al-Sadr went underground at the start of the American-led security crackdown on Baghdad 15 weeks ago, he ordered his militia off the streets to prevent conflict with American forces. Nevertheless, his return likely complicates American efforts to crack down on violence and broker political compromise in the country.

A top Interior Ministry official, who refused to be named because he was not authorized to speak to the media, said suspicion immediately fell on the Mahdi Army because it was in control of the area around the data processing center and would have blocked such a massive operation by another group.

Fatih-Allah’s report to Finance Minister Bayan Jabr revealed key new details about the attack. Portions of the report were read to The Associated Press on the telephone by a government official who did so on condition of anonymity because the document was not for public distribution.

The report said four men in civilian clothing appeared at the center about 10:45 a.m. Tuesday – 15 minutes before the kidnapping. The account said the men claimed they were from the government anti-fraud commission and looked through each room in the center, then quickly left the building.

At about 11 a.m. dozens of men in army and police uniforms, the report said, burst into the building, disarmed guards and went directly into the room where the five Britons were working. The five were seized and rushed out of the building to 19 waiting four-wheel-drive vehicles. The convoy then drove away to the east.

The building sits on a side street off Palestine Street, a major thoroughfare in eastern Baghdad and not far from Baghdad’s district of Sadr City, a stronghold of the Mahdi Army.

The five kidnapped Britons included four bodyguards working for the Montreal-based security firm GardaWorld and one employee of BearingPoint, an America-based management consulting firm.

Mr. Fatih-Allah’s report said American troops surrounded the neighborhood around the center at dawn Wednesday and were joined by some British forces in an apparently fruitless house-to-house search for the men.

Mahdi Army members, who refused to allow use of their names for fear of arrest, said searching Sadr City was likely to be pointless. They said their organization, if involved, would have moved the Britons to locations outside Baghdad.

Police, Iraqi military, hospital and morgue officials reported a total of 72 people killed or found dead nationwide Wednesday.

The American military late Wednesday reported the deaths of three more soldiers, two killed in a roadside bombing and one who died of a non-combat cause. The bombing victims died Wednesday, the third soldier on Tuesday. Their deaths raised to 119 the number of soldiers killed this month, the third-deadliest month of the war for U.S. troops.

In Washington, Brigadier General Perry Wiggins, deputy director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the military believed a helicopter that crashed Monday north of Baghdad was brought down by small-arms fire. The Islamic State of Iraq, an al-Qaida front group, has claimed responsibility.