Bogus policemen kill two US civilians in Iraq

1.00pm

BAGHDAD - Gunmen posing as Iraqi police shot dead two United States civilians and their translator on a road south of Baghdad, officials said on Wednesday, in the latest attack targeting foreigners.

The three were killed on Tuesday on a road between Kerbala and Hilla. Their car was found later by Polish troops in charge of security in the area, with the bodies of the victims in the trunk. Five men found with the car were arrested.

A spokesman for Iraq's US governor, Paul Bremer, said the Americans were Department of Defence employees working for the US-led administration in Iraq. He said it was the first time since the start of the war that non-Iraqi civilians working for the administration had been killed.

"This was a targeted act of terrorism and an FBI team has been deployed to investigate," spokesman Dan Senor said.

Poland's Ministry of Defence said the attackers disguised themselves as police at a checkpoint.

"It was practically an execution carried out by people pretending to be Iraqi policemen," Defence Minister Jerzy Szmajdzinski said.

Guerrillas fighting the occupation of Iraq frequently attack on roads in lawless areas, using bombs hidden by the roadside or opening fire with assault rifles to ambush military vehicles and convoys of foreign civilians.

At least 380 US soldiers have been killed in action in Iraq since the start of the war to oust Saddam Hussein.

Violence also flared in the south, when Iraqi police confronted members of a security militia that had arrested two people in Nassiriya, 375km southeast of Baghdad.

A gunbattle erupted and four policemen were killed, Andrea Angeli, the coalition spokesman in Nassiriya, told Reuters.

He said Italian Carabinieri paratroopers stormed the offices of the security militia, known as the Citizens Security Group (CSG), to end the shoot-out and release the two detainees.

One Italian was wounded, he said.

"The situation was brought under control at around 1am when Carabinieri special paratroopers stormed the CSG building, rescued the two alleged hostages and arrested eight members of the CSG," Angeli said.

In the restive town of Baquba, 65km north of Baghdad, a bomb exploded beside the offices of a leading Shi'ite party, wounding at least one person and badly damaging the building, police and witnesses said.

The blast just after 6am shattered windows at the offices of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq.

On March 2, bomb attacks on Shi'ites in Baghdad and Kerbala killed at least 181 people, in Iraq's bloodiest day since Saddam was toppled. Washington has blamed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian who it says is an al Qaeda operative trying to stir up sectarian conflict in Iraq.

Efforts by Iraq's majority Shi'ites to flex their political muscles after years of oppression during the rule of Saddam have fuelled tensions with Sunni Arabs and Kurds.

Iraq's most revered Shi'ite cleric, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, has repeatedly intervened to force the US-led administration to redraw its political roadmap for Iraq.

On Monday, Iraq's US-appointed Governing Council signed an interim constitution which will guide Iraq until a permanent version is drawn up next year. The signing was delayed because of Sistani's objections, and the cleric issued a statement saying he was still unhappy with the document.

Washington plans to hand sovereignty to an unelected Iraqi government on June 30. Elections are due to follow in 2005.

Shi'ite pressure to have the lead role in post-Saddam Iraq has sparked fears among Sunnis and Kurds that their rights could be under threat.

The US military said on Wednesday it had accidentally killed an Iraqi civilian earlier this week when a mortar aimed at insurgents missed its target and struck a building in Ebja in the north of the country. In a statement, the Army said the incident was being investigated.

- REUTERS

Herald Feature: Iraq