Gunmen kill Iraqi sisters; U.S. soldier dies in blast
BAGHDAD, Iraq - FBI agents today investigated the slayings of two American coalition staffers and their translator by gunmen dressed as police, and an American soldier was killed by a roadside bomb north of the capital.
In the southern city of Basra, gunmen killed two Iraqi women working in a laundry for the U.S.-led coalition, officials said today. The women, who were sisters, were riding home in a taxi late Wednesday when gunmen stopped the vehicle and shot them, a coalition official said.
The women 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, a British Ministry of Defense official said.
The motive for the attack was not immediately known. Guerrillas have targeted Iraqis working with the U.S.-led occupation. Also, Basra, which is patrolled by the British military, has seen a number of killings blamed on Shiite militias enforcing Islamic law.
The military said today they detained 30 people during separate raids targeting Iraqis wanted for attacking coalition forces in the north. The raids were around Kirkuk and Baqouba, Army spokesman Maj. Neal O'Brien said.
Among those arrested was Zachair George, a man wanted by American forces for attacking coalition troops with homemade bombs, O'Brien said. Another wanted bombmaker was detained in Muqdadiyah, northeast of Baqouba.
Soldiers also confiscated rocket-propelled grenades, bombmaking equipment, guns and ammunition during the raids.
The two Americans and their translator killed Tuesday night were the first civilian staffers from the U.S.-led occupation authority to be killed in Iraq. Their deaths raised the worrisome prospect that guerrillas have taken a new tactic of posing as police.
"We are very concerned about it," Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, said in Baghdad.
Sanchez said he did not believe the gunmen were real policemen, although "we know that this has gone on ... that there are some policemen that have done criminal acts in the past."
