Bomb kills two Britons in Iraq consulate convoy

BASRA, Iraq - A roadside bomb blew up beside a British consulate convoy in the southern Iraqi city of Basra on Saturday, killing two Britons working for a private security firm, a consular spokeswoman and the company said.

Karen McLuskie of the consulate in Basra said the convoy was attacked as it passed through a southwestern part of the city. It was not clear if anyone else was injured in the blast.

The two dead were security contractors employed by Control Risks Group and both were British citizens, said Peter Stevenson, a spokesman for the London-based security company.

"Although anyone working in Iraq is well aware of the dangers involved it in no way diminishes the sadness we feel for the two men who have died today," Richard Fenning, Chief Operating Officer of Control Risks Group, said in a statement.

A little-known Iraqi insurgent group said it was behind the attack, according to a Web posting.

"Thanks be to God -- this morning ... an attack with an explosive device was carried out on a British convoy, killing two Britons," said a statement from the group calling itself the Imam Hussein Brigades. Its authenticity could not be verified.

The group's name suggests it is Shi'ite Muslim. Its statement was posted on a site used by the main Iraqi insurgent groups, including the al Qaeda group, which are Sunni Muslim.

- REUTERS television footage showed a dark blue sport utility vehicle with smashed panelling and blood on a side window. Iraqi police and British forces were at the scene.

In Baghdad, insurgents kept up pressure on security forces in their drive to topple the U.S.-backed government. A suicide bomber in a car attacked a police checkpoint, killing at least five people and wounding 20, a police source said.

Moderate Arab Sunni leader Sheikh Khalaf al-Ilayan escaped an assassination attempt in which his bodyguard was wounded, said a spokesman for his group, The Iraqi National Dialogue.

"Sheikh Khalaf al-Ilayan was heading to Baghdad when men in the uniforms of government forces attacked his car," The Iraqi National Dialogue spokesman said.

Two members of The Iraqi National Dialogue serving on the committee drafting Iraq's new constitution were shot dead two weeks ago, prompting Sunnis to boycott the panel for six days.

They resumed their work, but Saturday's assassination attempt was a new challenge to the Shi'ite-dominated government's strategy of drawing Sunnis into the political process to try to defuse the Sunni-led insurgency.

Al Qaeda in Iraq has said Sunnis that join Iraq's political process would be infidels who deserved to die.

THREE BODIES FOUND

A suicide bomber also attacked a US convoy in the western city of Hit in Anbar province on Saturday, wounding four Marines, the US military said in a statement.

The death toll from a suicide bombing in northern Iraq on Friday climbed to 40, police said on Saturday. They said the number of wounded in the attack by a man who blew himself up among a group of Iraqi army recruits rose to 57.

And in what has become a litany of bombs, kidnappings and gruesome discoveries in Iraq, the bodies of three people who had been blindfolded and shot were found in Baghdad.

Police said the three men were Baghdad Airport employees kidnapped by insurgents.

An Iraqi Health Ministry official, Eman Naji, was kidnapped by gunmen who stormed her home in the capital's prosperous Mansour district, police said.

A roadside bomb killed an Iraqi civilian and wounded three in a car on a road south of Baghdad, police said. Another blast targeting a US military convoy killed one Iraqi civilian in the Doura district of Baghdad, police said.

Besides trying to meet a timetable for a constitution and elections later this year, the government hopes fallen dictator Saddam Hussein will face trial as early as possible, which may weaken the insurgency led by his supporters.

However, similar hopes were dashed after his capture in 2003 and Saddam has shown his trademark defiance, saying the court has no authority because it was installed by the United States.

His defence team said on Saturday that Saddam exchanged blows with an unidentified man who attacked him during a court appearance in Baghdad on Thursday. The US military, which has physical custody of Saddam, denied the incident took place.

- REUTERS