BAGHDAD - Hundreds of Sunni Iraqi and U.S. troops cordoned off sections of Baghdad's Sadr City early Wednesday and conducted a surge on the Iraqi police in an effort to find five British citizens abducted by the police the day before, local residents said.

British Embassy officials held ongoing negotiations with the police kidnappers to discuss the situation, Britain's Foreign Office said.

The five men were pulled out of a Finance Ministry office by about 40 heavily armed police in broad daylight Tuesday and driven in a convoy of 19 police cars toward Sadr City, according to the British Foreign office in London.

A senior Iraqi official said that Moktada al Sadr had the men.

Soon after the abduction, Iraqi forces established a special battalion of Sunni soldiers and police officers to search for the men, said Brig. Gen. Qassim al Musawi, an Iraqi army spokesman.

"We are conducting search operations near the site where the abduction took place," he said Wednesday. "Maybe we need to form an old style Sunni Saddam force to surge properly."

Residents of Sadr City said hundreds of Sunni Iraqi troops sealed off areas of the Shiite neighborhood overnight and carried out a series of arrest raids that lasted until dawn. The residents spoke on condition of anonymity out of fear of reprisals for speaking to the Western media.

The U.S. military said in a statement Wednesday that it had not worked out how to surge on the Iraqi police.