Attackers Kill 4 Iraqis Seen as Aiding U.S.

BAGHDAD — In new attacks targeting civilians deemed collaborators with the U.S. occupation, gunmen destroyed a minibus ferrying employees from a U.S. base here, killing three people, and a woman was slain by assailants who broke into her house.

Two U.S. soldiers also were killed, one in a firefight south of Baghdad and the other when a roadside bomb hit a military vehicle, officials said Sunday. More than 780 troops have died since the war began.

In the first of the attacks on civilians, two women and their driver were slain as they rode from a U.S. base to their home in Baghdad’s Doura district late Saturday, police said.

An assailant drove alongside their minibus and opened fire, forcing the bus to the side of the road. One of the attackers then tossed an explosive device into the vehicle, blowing it apart.

One woman survived but was in serious condition, officials said.

It was not immediately clear what the women’s job was at the U.S. base. More than half a dozen previous attacks in Iraq have targeted translators and women working as cleaning and maintenance staff for U.S. bases and other facilities. Many other Iraqis working for U.S. interests here have been warned to quit or face death.

In this weekend’s second attack, an Iraqi woman working as a translator for U.S. forces was killed and a second person was injured Sunday when assailants broke into their houses in Mahmoudiya, Associated Press reported.

Further details were not available on the incident in Mahmoudiya, a suburb south of Baghdad where anti-U.S. feeling runs high.

It was at least the fifth time that officials or others viewed as cooperating with U.S. forces have been slain in the vicinity of Mahmoudiya, home to many members of ousted President Saddam Hussein’s former security and intelligence services. The victims include two former police chiefs, a well-known contractor who worked for the U.S. military and a woman who was believed to be informing on insurgents, officials said.

The area has also become notorious for drive-by shootings of Westerners traveling on a highway leading south from Baghdad. Among those slain in vehicles in the area were seven Spanish intelligence agents, two members of a CNN news crew and, most recently, a Polish television journalist and his Algerian colleague.

Meanwhile, skirmishes continued Sunday across southern Iraq, where militiamen loyal to militant Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada Sadr have rebelled against the U.S.-led coalition occupying the nation.

U.S. tanks rumbled down the streets of Karbala, exchanging fire with militiamen who attacked with mortars and rocket-propelled grenades, Reuters reported. There was no definitive word on casualties.

Reflecting the mounting irritation with Sadr among many Iraqi leaders, Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said Sadr’s forces had taken Karbala and nearby Najaf “hostage,” Reuters reported.

In the southern city of Nasiriya, AP said, militiamen fought Italian troops at two bridges across the Euphrates for the third day. Two insurgents were killed and 20 people were injured, the news service said.

Six Italian soldiers were slightly wounded in Nasiriya, Maj. Antonio Sottile, spokesman for Italian forces in Iraq, told AP.

Italy’s ANSA news agency said a convoy transporting the Italian official in charge of Nasiriya, Barbara Contini, was attacked as it neared Coalition Provisional Authority offices. Contini was not injured, but two Italian paramilitary police were hurt.

Officials say most civilian coalition staffers have been evacuated from Nasiriya because of threats from Sadr’s Al Mahdi militia.

U.S. forces have killed scores of Sadr militiamen in recent weeks, but the rebels still roam the streets and are said to have shielded themselves among Najaf and Karbala’s gold-domed shrines, which are sacred to Shiites worldwide. U.S. officials have vowed not to approach the shrines, although militiamen charged that U.S. fire damaged the dome of the shrine of Imam Ali in Najaf this weekend. U.S. officials denied that U.S. weapons caused the damage.

Sadr’s forces rose up against the occupation in several southern cities last month after U.S. authorities moved against the cleric. U.S. officials say Sadr must disband his militia and turn himself in to face charges in the slaying of a rival cleric last year. Sadr has offered to subject himself to the judgment of the Shiite clerical leadership.

In Seoul, meanwhile, a Foreign Ministry official said today that the United States wants to move some of the 37,000 U.S. troops stationed in South Korea to Iraq, AP reported. He said the details, including the number that might be redeployed, are being worked out.

“The U.S. government has told us that it needs to select some U.S. troops in South Korea and send them to Iraq to cope with the worsening situation,” said Kim Sook of the ministry’s North American bureau. “South Korea and the United States are discussing the matter.”