Iraqi Women 'Collaborators' Killed

(CBS/AP)  In Basra Wednesday night, gunmen shot dead two Iraqi women working with the coalition as they were returning home in a taxi.

That follows the shooting deaths the day before of two American civilians — including a woman — by attackers disguised as Iraqi policemen at a makeshift checkpoint.

Militants frequently target anybody seen as cooperating as coalition forces, labeling them as "collaborators" — but rarely women, reports CBS News Correspondent Charlie D'Agata.

In other developments:

An American soldier was killed and two others were injured when a homemade bomb went off in Baqouba, the U.S. military said Thursday. The three soldiers all were part of the 652nd Engineering Battalion and based in Baqouba. That brings to 554 the number of U.S. service members who have died since the United States launched the Iraq war in March.

A roadside bomb went off Thursday as a U.S. military convoy of nearly 50 vehicles passed by on a main street in the town of Fallujah, killing one Iraqi and wounding two others, said police Lt. Omar Ismail.

The two Iraqi women, who were sisters, worked in a laundry for the U.S. company Kellogg Brown & Root, which has a contract to provide logistical services for the coalition and military, an official at the British Ministry of Defense said.

Although Basra has been relatively peaceful compared to attacks further north in the Sunni Triangle, reports D'Agata, the region has seen several killings blamed on Shiite Muslims enforcing strict Islamic Law.

Meanwhile, L. Paul Bremer, the top administrator in Iraq, has requested that the FBI investigate the slayings of the Americans late Tuesday on a road outside the town of Hillah, 35 miles south of Baghdad, said Dan Senor, spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition.

The two Americans were the first U.S. civilians working for the occupation authority to be killed in Iraq. It was not yet known whether the gunmen were specifically targeting coalition officials. "We're starting to form views on that," Senor said Wednesday.

CBS News Anchor Dan Rather reports one of the Americans killed in Tuesday's ambush was Fern Holland, 33, from Oklahoma City, who was working with Iraqi women on the interim constitution and helped write its women's rights section.

Holland was quoted as telling friends before she left the United States, "If I die, I know that I'm doing precisely what I want to be doing."

An officer with the Polish military, which patrols south-central Iraq, said the gunmen were disguised as policemen and stopped the Americans' car at a checkpoint. The attackers shot dead the passengers and took the vehicle, Col. Robert Strzelecki said.

Polish troops later intercepted the car, arrested five Iraqis in it and found the bodies inside, said Strzelecki, speaking from the Camp Babylon headquarters of the Polish-led multinational force in Iraq.

Senor said some reported details of the attack were incorrect, but would not elaborate. He did not identify the dead, pending notification of their families.

The Americans, employees of the Department of Defense, were the first U.S. civilians from the Coalition Provisional Authority to be killed in Iraq, Senor said.

An Army colonel working for the coalition was killed Oct. 26, when insurgents fired a barrage of rockets at Baghdad's Al-Rasheed hotel while Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz was visiting. Fifteen people were wounded, and Wolfowitz escaped unharmed.