IRAQ: Gunmen ambushed a convoy of westerners on a highway in north Baghdad last night, killing at least two people, with a number of others believed to have been abducted, police and witnesses said.
The attack in Baghdad's Shoala district occurred near dusk as three sport utility vehicles were travelling south towards the centre of the capital. Gunmen in a vehicle heading north opened fire, sending three of the four SUVs careering off the road and into barricades.
Crowds of Iraqi youths danced and cheered as rescuers dragged a bloodied body, wearing a flak vest, from the driver's seat of one of the vehicles. Others looted tyres and set two vehicles on fire.
A family of three was caught in the crossfire, said Dr Mazhar Abdullah of al-Sadr hospital. A man was killed and his wife, who was six-months pregnant, was seriously injured, the doctor said.
Earlier yesterday, US soldiers came under fire in the Shia holy city of Najaf, as an agreement to halt fighting there appeared to be unravelling. Two American soldiers were injured in the clashes around the city, the military said.
Three US marines were killed in action in the al-Anbar province on Saturday, the US military said. Another soldier died in a non-hostile incident. Elsewhere, attackers in Samarra, 75 miles northeast of the capital, Baghdad, hurled three mortar shells into a market, killing three and injuring four, said a hospital official.
In Najaf, 100 miles south of Baghdad, Shia politicians sought to save a three-day-old agreement with radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr to end the stand-off with US soldiers and restore government control.
Al-Sadr's fighters took over Najaf and Kufa in early April after occupation authorities cracked down on his militia, closing his newspaper, arresting a key lieutenant and announcing an arrest warrant against him for the murder of a rival cleric. This triggered an uprising in the once quiet Shia areas and hundreds have been killed.
Under a deal announced on Thursday with Shia leaders, al-Sadr agreed to remove his fighters from the streets and begin a dialogue with the clerical hierarchy over the future of his militia and the warrant against him. US troops agreed to halt operations around Najaf and Kufa.
However, daily clashes since the agreement was announced have threatened to scuttle the deal. About 150 policemen sent from Baghdad to replace local policemen who deserted have returned to Baghdad - ostensibly because of a lack of accommodation for them.
US troops and al-Sadr's fighters exchanged gunfire near Najaf's Valley of Peace cemetery. Puffs of white smoke rose above the tombstones as Shia gunmen fired rocket-propelled grenades at US tanks. One Iraqi was killed and four were injured.
Meanwhile, gunmen posing as police killed two Iraqis working for an independent Iraqi newspaper, its editor, Ismael Zayir, said. He suspected the attackers were linked to the regime of Saddam Hussein. "Four vehicles led by a police car stopped outside my home and tried to force me into a car saying they were under personal orders from the interior minister." Zayir said the incident happened on Saturday.