An Iraqi woman translator working for the US military was shot dead and her brother wounded in an attack in the northern city of Mosul on yesterday, witnesses and police said.
They said the woman had been on her way to work at the main US military base in Mosul when her car came under small arms fire in the city's northern suburb of al-Muthanna.
The shooting occurred a day after gunmen attacked five US civilians driving through the city. Three of the Americans were killed in the attack and another died in hospital yesterday morning, the US military said. The fifth was in hospital.
The victims were missionaries with the Southern Baptist International Mission Board, based in Virginia, according to a report on the board's Web site.
Witnesses said the victims had been driving through the city, 390km north of Baghdad, in a civilian vehicle without a military escort on Monday when attackers raked their car with AK-47 assault rifles. Helicopters ferried the wounded to a US army hospital, and police sealed off the area.
Last Tuesday, two US civilians seconded from the Department of Defense and their Iraqi translator were shot dead in an ambush on a road south of Baghdad.
They were the first American employees of the US-led civilian administration to be killed in Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein on April 9 last year.
An FBI team is looking into the killings of the Americans, named as Fern Holland, 33, a lawyer, and Robert Zangas, 44, a press officer.
The US military said six people had been detained in connection with the incident and that four were believed to be members of the Iraqi police force.
Optimism
But despite the ongoing violence, most Iraqis have high hopes for the future and say their lives are going well, even as they harbor mixed feelings about the US-led invasion of their country, according to a nationwide poll.
Iraqis are divided over whether the invasion by US and British troops a year ago humiliated their country or liberated it, according to the poll conducted by ABC News and several other media organizations released Monday.
They have considerable worries about joblessness, security and basic services like electricity, according to the poll.
"The positive attitudes and the high expectations and optimism are quite striking, with majorities telling us their lives are going well," ABC polling director Gary Langer said.
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