Three British soldiers were killed yesterday by unknown gunmen in the southern port of Basra, further destabilizing the country even as the UN returned to work for the first time since the devastating bombing of its Baghdad headquarters.
The attack was bound to cast a pall over a new US effort to convince reluctant UN members to send foreign troops to Iraq as it seeks relief for its beleaguered troops, bogged down in a low-level war with a host of guerrilla fighters, ranging from radical Islamists to loyalists of Saddam Hussein.
"A serious incident took place in central Basra at 8:30 this morning. We can confirm that three British servicemen have been killed and one seriously injured," a coalition spokesman said.
"The casualty has been taken to the hospital for treatment."
Witnesses and a British major earlier said that three British soldiers and as many as four Iraqi civilians had been wounded when coalition troops came under fire from gunmen.
The soldiers, driving a sport-utility vehicle, were ambushed by gunmen in a white four-door Toyota near the old British cemetery, said street seller Sabir Naama, 48.
"The driver was hit and lost control of the vehicle, hitting an Iraqi woman and two children. He then slammed into a building," said Naama.
Another man caught in the crossfire between the soldiers and the gunmen was hit and taken to hospital, he added.
The latest shooting comes after a string of attacks on British soldiers this month and a violent two days of rioting in Basra, shattering the image of the British-controlled region as a peaceful oasis.
Neither were the British safe in Baghdad where its diplomats were evacuated from their embassy compound the day after the bombing of the UN headquarters, after a "credible threat" of an attack, London's The Times newspaper reported yesterday.
The Times did not say whether the staff had returned to the embassy compound, housed in the former Ottoman governor's residence on the banks of the Tigris.
In the capital, around 200 UN workers returned to work yesterday four days after a suicide bomber sped into the world body's headquarters in Iraq and detonated 700 pounds of old Soviet munitions, killing 23 people and wounding more than 100.
The body of UN envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello, killed in the blast, was flown out of Baghdad Friday as his staff vowed not to run away from Iraq in the face of the worst attack in UN history.
A Brazilian air force jet carrying Vieira de Mello's body left Baghdad airport for Geneva after mourners, including US civil administrator for Iraq Paul Bremer, paid their last respects to the diplomat.
"We will not be deterred by any act of terrorism," Bremer said. "The rebuilding of Iraq by Iraqi people will go on. It's not going to be stopped by this act or any such act."
Picking up the pieces, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan Friday named Ramiro Lopes da Silva as interim top United Nations official in Iraq.
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