5 foreigners killed in Baghdad car bombing

Five foreigners were among the 13 killed and three among the wounded in a car bomb attack on a busy Baghdad street on Monday, Iraq's new Prime Minister Iyad Allawi announced.

"Five foreigners were killed and three others injured," Allawi told a news conference, without identifying the nationalities of the casualties.

However, the US military said the foreign casualties in the attack included two Britons, one Frenchman, one American and a foreigner of undetermined nationality.

Vowing to bring those responsible to justice, Allawi described the attack as "coward and unfortunate" because the foreigners were working in Iraq's power sector to help the country rebuild its power stations.

"It is an unfortunate and cowardly incident that happened today," Allawi said. "These people were helping Iraq rebuild its power generating stations."

Earlier on Monday morning, a suspected suicide car bomber blew himself up at rush hour on a busy street in central Baghdad as a convoy of foreigners in three sport utility vehicles drove by, killing at least 13 people and wounding dozens.

A Xinhua photographer at the scene said three vehicles were destroyed and three deformed bodies were seen in the wreckage of one of the cars.

The blast demolished the front part of a nearby two-storey building, and civilians cars parked under the building were also damaged.

People pulled victims out of the debris, but the exact casualties were not known since many of the wounded people were sent to different hospitals and clinics while others were treated elsewhere.

"I was sitting at a nearby shop when I heard a huge explosion and then saw two cars burned," said Osaman Ali, a Sudanese laid in bed in the al-Kindi Hospital with serious bruises all over his body.

Ali was among the 29 injured people sent to the hospital, said Doctor Mustafa al-Abusi. Five Iraqis were dead when they were carried out of the ambulances, added Abusi.

Ali told Xinhua that several guys began to step upon the charred vehicle and yelled anti-US slogans after the blast.

Other witnesses at the scene said three civilian SUVs, the kind favored by Western contractors, travelled in the street between Tahrir Square and Taiaran Square at the eastern side of Tigris river when a car rushed near the convoy and exploded.

Dozens of people rallied in the area around the damaged vehicles, waving and jumping on their roofs, chanting "America is the enemy of God."

The crowd set the vehicles ablaze, sending thick black smoke into the sky.

The bomb blast was the latest in a surge in the attacks targeting US forces, Iraqi police, officials and foreigners working with the occupation authority.

Allawi accused the Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi of trying to disturb the transfer of power to Iraqis by waging suicide attacks.

"Al-Zarqawi and his followers are working to prevent the success of this measure," he said, referring to the transfer of power from the US-led occupation on June 30.

He called on the Iraqi people to be patient and tolerate the insecurity in the country, promising them to gain victory over the terrorists.

"I want our people to be patient this month against those forces which are trying to attack them and I promise the people that we are going to get rid of them and gain victory in order to build the free and decent Iraq life," he said.

Source: Xinhua