Gunmen kidnapped two Americans and a Briton from a house in an affluent central Baghdad neighbourhood today, the latest in a nearly six-month campaign of abductions of foreigners in Iraq.
Police said they had found the corpse of a man believed to be a Westerner near the town of Samarra, north of Baghdad.
The body was bloated, suggesting the man had been dead for some time, the police said.
As well as the two Americans and the Briton, four Europeans are known to have been taken hostage in the past few weeks, two male French journalists and two Italian female aid workers.
Militants posted video footage on the Internet purportedly showing the killing of three Arabic-speaking truckers, who were also shown warning others against working with US forces in Iraq.
In northern Iraq, gunmen kidnapped a Syrian truck driver.
The incidents added to a sense of insecurity created by months of violence that has prompted UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to question whether elections can be held in January, as planned by Iraq's interim government and its US backers.
Mr George W. Bush's challenger in November's US presidential election, Mr John Kerry, also questioned Iraq's vote timetable and a leaked US intelligence report offered a gloomy outlook, with the worst scenario being a deterioration into civil war.