2 British Guards Reported Shot in Iraq

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A drive-by shooting Sunday in northern Iraq (news - web sites) killed two people described by a local official as British guards at a power station.

U.S. soldiers and Iraqi police sealed off the area in Mosul after the shooting. Witnesses said the victims, in flak jackets, were beside a burning four-wheel drive vehicle. An Iraqi official at the power station in East Mosul said the victims were British guards who were protecting foreign experts working at the station. Speaking on condition of anonymity, the official said a second car carrying the experts escaped the attack. The victims' nationalities could not immediately be confirmed and the U.S. military in Baghdad said it had no information about the incident.

Insurgents have targeted foreign civilians, possibly as a means of undermining reconstruction efforts in Iraq. Earlier this month, gunmen killed four American missionaries working on a water project in Mosul. Also Sunday, a bomb exploded outside the home of a police officer in a city northeast of Baghdad, injuring five bystanders, including two children. The blast in a residential area of Baqouba, where anti-U.S. insurgents are active, wounded an eight-year-old boy and his 10-year-old sister, police Capt. Mohammed Hadi said. The targeted policeman was inside his house at the time, and was unharmed.

Further north, in Kirkuk, a bomb exploded at an intersection where police cars park. Three civilians were injured, police Col. Dashti Aziz said. As bystanders gathered after the blast, gunmen opened fire from a passing car, but there were no casualties. Police said the shooters were later apprehended. 

Rebels routinely target police and other Iraqis working with the U.S.-led coalition that is governing Iraq, but civilians often get caught in the crossfire. On Saturday, rebel rockets slammed into a government building in the northern city of Mosul, killing two civilians and wounding 14 others. The rocket launcher was hidden in a wooden cart that was wheeled up to a blast wall surrounding the three-story main government building, said Mosul police Sgt. Jassim Mohammed.

In the country's south Saturday, a gunman shot and killed the Iraqi driver of a civilian truck carrying supplies to Japan's military, Japan's Kyodo News agency said. The attack was an apparent robbery attempt. Japan's Defense Agency said a civilian truck hired to transport supplies to Japanese troops in Samawah had been attacked. Tokyo has about 1,000 naval, air, and ground forces in Iraq to help with reconstruction.