Three Westerners nabbed by gunmen in the Iraqi capital on Thursday are two Americans and one Briton, the Interior Ministry said.

Earlier, officials had said the three men were all Britons.

The captives were believed to be civilians living in a house at Mansour neighborhood, on the west part of Baghdad. Gunmen snatched them in their house at dawn without violence, the interior ministry spokesman Col. Adnan abdul-Rahman said.

He could not immediately provide further details about the incident.

There was no immediate confirmation of the abduction from the British Embassy in Baghdad.

A few small foreign businesses have their headquarters in the Mansour neighborhood. Most of them are protected by armed guards, but others have a more low-key security presence.

(Xinhua News Agency September 17, 2004)