Four female employees at the US run Baghdad airport were killed and three others wounded after armed men attacked the minibus taking them to work, an Interior Ministry source says.

The attack happened at about 8am (0400 GMT) in Ameriya, a tense area in western Baghdad, and was followed by clashes between armed men and Iraqi security forces, the source said, adding it was unclear whether there were any casualties from the fighting.

There have been several deadly incidents in the past involving Iraqis working at the airport.

Iran embassy blast

Also in the capital, a convoy of Western security guards was hit by a roadside bomb on Tuesday outside the Iranian embassy, wounding an Iraqi civilian and damaging a vehicle, the US military and security sources said.

The attack targeted a "personnel security detachment", said a US military spokesman, using the customary term for private security guards.

US soldiers on foot and in armoured vehicles were seen on the road minutes after the attack which happened at about 10.15am (0615 GMT). Earlier, an Interior Ministry source had said that a US convoy was the target of the attack.

An official at the embassy reached by telephone said the building and all of the mission's staff were fine. "It happened on the road outside. Everything is fine here," Hussein Anwar said.

In a separate incident, the US military said one of its patrols was hit by a roadside bomb in southeastern Baghdad and that "there were several casualties transported to hospital".

In Samawa in south-western Iraq, the Japanese military said four mortars landed on its base in the city late on Monday. There were no casualties.

Four mortar rounds landed on a US military base just north of the Shia holy city of Najaf on Monday evening, witnesses said. There were no immediate reports of casualties.

Iraqis seized{mosgoogle right}

Elsewhere, armed men seized eight Iraqis as they drove to work at a US base in Baquba, northeast of Baghdad, said police Colonel Modhafar al-Majmaie. A car bomb killed two civilians in western Baghdad, police said.
 
In separate incidents in Mosul, armed men killed a senior member of the Kurdish Democratic Party's (KDP) Mosul branch and a bodyguard of the provincial Nineveh governor, officials said.  

Iraqi soldiers were also killed and others injured in a car bomb explosion targeting their patrol in al-Shuhada neighbourhood south of Falluja, medical sources told sources.

In Tal Afar, about 50km west of Mosul, armed men assassinated a council member, Abdul Kareem Suleiman, officials said.

Recommend this article...

Did you enjoy this article? Please bookmark it onto: