Al-Qaida-linked insurgents in Iraq claim responsibility for convoy attack; U.S. woman killed

(AP) An al-Qaida-linked coalition of Iraqi Sunni insurgents claimed responsibility Thursday for an attack in Baghdad on a convoy of a Western democracy institute that killed a 28-year-old Ohio woman and three security contractors.

The Washington-based National Democratic Institute identified its slain staffer as Andrea Parhamovich of Perry, Ohio. Contractors from Hungary, Croatia and Iraq also were killed in the ambush Wednesday. Two other people were wounded, one seriously.

Parhamovich, a graduate of Marietta College in central Ohio, had been working with NDI in Iraq since late 2006 as a communications specialist advising Iraqi political parties on how to reach out to voters and constituents. She was helping "build the kind of national level political institutions that can help bridge the sectarian divide and improve Iraqi lives," NDI said.

In the rural neighborhood where Parhamovich's parents live, David Rolfes of NDI and Parhamovich's brother-in-law, Joe Zampini, stood at a church across the road and asked reporters not to approach the family's home. Zampini appealed for privacy and said the family was in seclusion.

The community of about 1,100 people, about 35 miles east of Cleveland, is known for its many flower nurseries and greenhouses that take up acres of land, as well as being home to a FirstEnergy Corp. nuclear power plant.

"It's a sad time," said Perry High School principal Doug Jenkins, the middle school principal when Parhamovich attended the senior high school.

Tom Perry, spokesman for Marietta College, knew Parhamovich when she worked in the liberal art school's media relations office as a student.

"So it hit us as hard as anybody here because we knew her so well," Perry said.

"We saw what an excellent person she was, and she obviously had a passion for something and wanted to go there and be a part of it," Perry said. "We're proud she wanted to do this. It shows it's not just the soldiers who are in harm's way."

Perry said Parhamovich, who was known as Andi, graduated in 2000 with a degree in advertising and public relations with a minor in journalism. She worked for film company Miramax in New York for a short time, he said.

A statement released by NDI said Parhamovich also worked in the Massachusetts governor's office, at Air America Radio and at the International Republican Institute in Iraq before joining NDI's Baghdad staff in late 2006.

NDI's chairman, former Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright, said, "There is no more sacred roll of honor than those who have given their last full measure in support of freedom. Yesterday, in Iraq, Andrea Parhamovich and our security personnel were enshrined on that list.

"They did not see themselves as heroes, only people doing a job on behalf of a cause they believed in. They were not the enemies of anyone in Iraq; they were there to help," Albright said.

The institute supports democratic processes and institutions worldwide. Its staffers in Baghdad run training programs in democracy and political participation, as well as women's rights. The group has had staffers in Iraq since June 2003.

Gunmen opened fire on the three-vehicle convoy on Wednesday in Yarmouk, a predominantly Sunni neighborhood in western Baghdad.

"Praise be to God, in an attack with light and medium weapons and RPG's in the Yarmouk area in Baghdad on Jan. 17, two SUVs belonging to the Zionist Mossad were destroyed and a third one was severely damaged," said a statement posted Thursday on an Islamic Web site.

The statement was signed by the spokesman of the "Islamic state in Iraq," the so-called Islamic government that al-Qaida in Iraq and several other Iraqi Sunni Arab insurgent groups declared earlier last year. The statement was posted on a Web forum where Sunni insurgents often release messages.

A U.S. official said that the statement's authenticity could not be determined.

Its purported author _ Islamic state in Iraq _ is considered al-Qaida in Iraq's political arm, said the official, who did not want to be identified because of the information's sensitivity.

Creation of the group in October was taken as a propaganda move and a signal of al-Qaida in Iraq's interest in unifying all Sunni jihadists under one umbrella, but the official said some Sunni groups haven't embraced the new organization.

In its Web statement, the group did not say anything about how many were killed or their nationalities, but al-Qaida usually refers to foreigners whose nationalities it does not know as members of the Mossad, the Israeli spy agency.

Parhamovich was the first full-time worker for the group to be killed in Iraq. A security contractor for the organization was killed in March 2004.

According to insurance claims on file at the Department of Labor, 770 civilian contractors have been killed in Iraq since the war began in March 2003 through Dec. 31 and 7,761 civilian contractors have been injured. The contractors include foreign workers.

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Associated Press reporters Joe Milicia in Perry, Ohio, Connie Mabin and M.R. Kropko in Cleveland and Katherine Shrader in Washington contributed to this report.