A rocket attack on Baghdad's international Green Zone today killed two Ugandans and a Peruvian working for a US security contractor hired to protect US facilities in Iraq, the US embassy said.
The fortified Green Zone lies on the bank of the Tigris River and hosts government ministries, parliament and government officials' homes as well as foreign embassies, including the massive US embassy complex.
Fifteen people, two of them American, were wounded in the attack, the embassy said in a statement.
The dead and wounded all worked for the contractor Triple Canopy, a firm based in Herndon, Virginia, founded by US special forces veterans. Its guards man security checkpoints for the embassy and US military facilities in Iraq.
"This cruel and senseless attack will not deter the United States from carrying out its goal of working with the Iraqi government and people to build a democratic future," the embassy said.
US officials declined to say exactly where the rocket landed. An Iraqi police source said it struck near the sprawling US embassy complex.
Violence in Iraq has subsided sharply since the sectarian slaughter of 2006-07, when tens of thousands of people were killed. But scores of civilians die each month in bombings and shootings.
US forces are scheduled to end combat operations formally on August 31st, more than seven years after the invasion that ousted former dictator Saddam Hussein.
The United States has about 70,000 troops in Iraq and plans to cut that number to 50,000 by the end of next month, ahead of a full withdrawal by 2012.
Tensions have run high since a March 7th parliamentary election that produced no clear winner. Insurgents appear to have taken advantage of a power vacuum as political factions jostle for position in a coalition government.
Militants fired several mortars or rockets into the Green Zone during a visit by US vice president Joe Biden last September. One round killed two Iraqi civilians and others landed near the US embassy compound.
Reuters