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Women translators killed in Iraq

Gunmen killed two Iraqi women working as translators for the British army, a day after the slaying of two US coalition officials and their translator by attackers disguised as police in southern Iraq, officials said Thursday.

The two women, sisters, were driving home in a taxi in Basra late Wednesday when gunmen stopped the vehicle and opened fire on them, a coalition official in the southern city said.

The motive for the attack was not immediately known. Guerillas have targeted Iraqis working with the US-led occupation. Also, Basra, which is patrolled by the British military, has seen a number of killings blamed on Shiite militias enforcing Islamic law.

Meanwhile, Paul Bremer, the top US administrator in Iraq, has requested that the FBI investigate the slayings of the Americans late Tuesday on a road outside the town of Hillah, 60 km south of Baghdad, said Dan Senor, spokesman for the US-led coalition.

The two Americans were the first US civilians working for the occupation authority to be killed in Iraq. It was not yet known whether the gunmen were specifically targeting coalition officials.

``We're starting to form views on that,'' Senor said Wednesday.

It was also unclear if the Americans were traveling with security -- coalition guidelines discourage staffers from movements after dark. The roads around Hillah have seen a number of attacks on vehicles, some fatal, including the Feb. 14 killing of a US civilian.

An officer with the Polish military, which patrols south-central Iraq, said the gunmen were disguised as policemen and stopped the Americans' car at a checkpoint. The attackers shot dead the passengers and took the vehicle, Colonel Robert Strzelecki said.

Polish troops later intercepted the car, arrested five Iraqis in it and found the bodies inside, said Strzelecki, speaking from the Camp Babylon headquarters of the Polish-led multinational force in Iraq.

Senor said some reported details of the attack were incorrect, but would not elaborate. He did not identify the dead, pending notification of their families.

The Americans, employees of the Department of Defense, were the first US civilians from the Coalition Provisional Authority to be killed in Iraq, Senor said.

An Army colonel working for the coalition was killed Oct. 26, when insurgents fired a barrage of rockets at Baghdad's Al-Rasheed hotel while Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz was visiting. Fifteen people were wounded, and Wolfowitz escaped unharmed.

Civilian contractors have also been killed in past attacks. Since the war began, 553 US service members have died in Iraq, 379 of them from hostile action. Since May 1, when US President George W. Bush declared major combat operations in Iraq over, 264 US troops have been killed by the insurgency thought to be led by forces loyal to former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, or foreign fighters.

Also Wednesday, gunmen killed two police officers and critically wounded a third while the police were having lunch in a restaurant in the northern town of Qaim, near the Syrian border, police said.
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