World

3 U.S. Civilians Shot Dead In Iraq

March 16, 2004 / 6:28 AM EST / CBS/AP

Three American civilians were killed and two wounded in a drive-by shooting Monday in the northern city of Mosul, the U.S. military said.

U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Tom Gilroy, a military spokesman in Baghdad, said the victims worked for a non-governmental organization.

U.S. military helicopters ferried the wounded to a U.S. Army combat support hospital in Mosul attack. CBS News Radio reports witnesses said the victims had been driving through Mosul in a civilian vehicle without a military escort.

It was the second attack against U.S. civilians in less than a week. In Wednesday's attack, gunmen posing as police killed two American civilians and their Iraqi translator — all employees of the U.S.-led coalition — at a makeshift checkpoint south of Baghdad.

U.S. Lt. Col. Joseph Piek, a spokesman for American forces in Mosul, said in an e-mail message that the victims were traveling in one car on the eastern side of the city when they were attacked.

Witnesses said they saw victims lying on the street and inside the car, including a man in the front passenger's side with his seat belt fastened.

In other developments:

A coalition spokesman said Monday that Spain's role in the U.S.-led coalition is critical to the nation-building effort in Iraq, as the leader of Spain's victorious Socialists said he will recall the 1,300 Spanish peacekeeping troops by June 30. "The Spaniards are performing heroically, and are critical to our efforts here," Dan Senor said at a briefing.

Iraqi political differences have resurfaced. This time, it's over what role, if any, the United Nations will be invited to play in the search for a government that will take over from the U.S.-led coalition on June 30.

In another northern city, Mosul, assailants fired several mortar shells at a police station early Monday. The shells failed to hit any buildings, but lightly injured a civilian and damaged some cars outside the station.

A coalition staffer suffered serious stab wounds Saturday evening when he was attacked by an assailant inside the Green Zone, the area that houses the headquarters of the U.S.-led coalition, Senor said. The victim, a U.S. Army officer, was transported to a U.S. military facility in Germany for treatment.

A senior official at Iran's Interior Ministry denied a U.S. military report that an Iranian border guard may have been killed in a border clash with American soldiers.

Earlier Monday, gunmen killed a member of the city council and a bodyguard in the northern city of Kirkuk , Iraqi police said.

The Shiite councilor, Aggar Al-Taweel, was shot several times in the head as he drove to the weekly meeting of the city council, said police chief Torhan Yussif. The gunmen fired from a red car and fled.

Al-Taweel, who founded an Arab political party that later splintered, was known for frank opinions and was often outspoken in council debates.

Oil-rich Kirkuk has seen increasing ethnic tensions, occasionally erupting into violence, as Kurds, Arabs and ethnic Turkmen jostle for domination.

Kurds see the city as the heart of their Kurdistan homeland, and leaders are pressing for the city to eventually hold a referendum to determine if it will join a Kurdish federal region — a step opposed by many Arabs and Turkmen.

The Spanish base in Iraq is in Diwaniyah, some 112 miles south of Baghdad. Spain leads the Plus Ultra brigade, a command that also includes forces from El Salvador, Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic.

Eleven Spaniards have died in Iraq since August, including seven intelligence agents killed in an ambush in late November.

"They've had some tragedies over the past few months, as most nations here have," said U.S. Maj. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, a coalition spokesman. "We see them as a full partner in the coalition, we certainly see them as no different than all the other major contributing nations, as providing a significant presence here."

According to Iraqi officials and a source close to the U.S.-sponsored political process, influential Shiite members of the Governing Council charge that veteran U.N. diplomat Lakhdar Brahimi, the team of experts' Algerian leader, toed the U.S. policy line when he decided in a report last month that elections by June 30, as demanded by the Shiite Muslim clergy, were not feasible for reasons long cited by Washington — no electoral structure, no reliable census and an untenable security situation.

The report was compiled after a weeklong visit to Iraq last month by Brahimi's team of U.N. election experts.

"Lakhdar Brahimi has achieved what the United States wanted from him," charged Hamed al-Bayati, a spokesman for the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the leading Shiite political party. "I don't recall anything agreed that suggests that the U.N. will be invited back to help. It may be just a common presumption."

Opposition by the Shiites, who have 13 of the council's 25 seats, to a U.N. role is countered by the enthusiasm of their Sunni Arab and Kurdish colleagues — each with five seats on the council. The Sunni Arabs and Kurds see the U.N.'s involvement as essential. Their differences are fast evolving into a new political battle that follows bitter wrangling over parts of the interim constitution.

The United States agrees with them, arguing that U.N. participation will give the process legitimacy and possibly head off any objections from Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani, the Shiites' most powerful cleric. Already, opposition by the 75-year-old al-Sistani forced Washington to drop two political plans for Iraq.

Washington is adamant that the June 30 date be respected. Underlining its resolve, it has sent a senior White House official, Ambassador Robert Blackwill of the president's national security staff, to Baghdad to help push the process forward.