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Daily attacks plague Iraq
17/03/2004 11:44 - (SA)
Baghdad - Four US church-related aid workers died in Monday's drive-by shooting in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, the US military and the Southern Baptist International Mission Board said Tuesday.
And on Tuesday, an Iraqi female translator, working with the US army in Mosul, was shot dead in her car, police said.
Gunmen struck again Tuesday evening, killing an Iraqi police colonel, two of his bodyguards and seriously wounding a third, a police spokesman said.
Assailants pulled up alongside Colonel Ismail Gaith's car and sprayed it with gunfire, police spokesman Khalil Ibrahim Shaker told AFP.
The US military initially reported three deaths in Monday night's road ambush on the aid workers, but one of two Americans wounded later succumbed to injuries.
"One of the wounded persons died overnight at approximately 03:30 (12:30 GMT) en route by military aircraft from the US Army combat support hospital in Mosul to the combat support hospital in Baghdad," the military said.
Assailants raked the aid workers' vehicle with Kalashnikov fire in eastern Mosul on Monday night.
They had been in the Mosul area delivering relief items at the time of the shooting, the military said.
Police in Mosul said the group of three women and two men had been driving when a vehicle sped up alongside and ambushed them. The attackers then sped off.
At least two of the people killed were women, the police added.
An off-duty police officer raced the two surviving Americans to the local hospital.
Victims identified
The Southern Baptist International Mission Board identified the three who died late on Monday, before the death toll rose to four.
"Three Americans researching needs for humanitarian projects in northern Iraq were killed and two were wounded in a drive-by shooting March 15 in Mosul. The workers were in the area under the auspices of the Southern Baptist International Mission Board," the organisation said on its website.
"Killed were Larry Elliott, 60, and Jean Dover Elliott, 58, of Cary, North Carolina, and Karen Denise Watson, 38, of Bakersfield, California. The Elliotts had served with the International Mission Board in Honduras since 1978 and been transferred to the Middle East in February 2004. Watson had been with the board since March 2003."
The board listed the wounded as David McDonnall, 28, and Carrie Taylor McDonnall, 26, of Rowlett, Texas, who joined in November 2003.
Insurgents have previously targeted civilian contractors for the US-led coalition and relief organisations in Iraq in a bid to destabilise the country.
Two US government employees and their Iraqi translator were killed on March 9, possibly by renegade policemen, in central Iraq.
- AFP
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