1 Iraqi Worker Killed, 14 Hurt in Ambush

BAGHDAD —  Gunmen ambushed a bus carrying female Iraqi Airways employees to work Thursday, killing at least one woman and injuring 14 others in a hail of gunfire and grenades, an official said.

The attack, which occurred on the capital’s perilous airport road, was the latest in a series of assaults targeting commuter buses in Baghdad. At least 25 commuters, most of them employees of the newly reopened national airline, were on the bus when it was fired on by assailants in another vehicle.

The violence came on a day that Britain agreed to a U.S. request to redeploy 850 British troops from Iraq’s relatively quiet south to an area of heavy insurgent fighting near Baghdad. The troop movement will free up additional U.S. forces for a planned offensive to wrest control of the guerrilla stronghold of Fallouja in preparation for the national elections scheduled for January.

The British government agreed to relocate members of the Black Watch, a storied Scottish infantry regiment, amid heavy political opposition in Parliament. The troops will take up position near Iskandariya, about 30 miles south of Baghdad, the site of frequent attacks on U.S. soldiers and others.

The action will expose British forces to greater risk of casualties and was criticized by Labor Party leaders as a misguided bid to support President Bush as the Nov. 2 U.S. election drew near.

“Don’t you think it is slightly ironic that the American president and his vice president, who both refused to face the muck and bullets in Vietnam, are now calling upon British forces to bail them out?” asked Parliament member Dennis Skinner.

Meanwhile, the husband of a British-born humanitarian aid worker who was abducted on her way to work in Baghdad on Tuesday pleaded for her release, saying she had devoted her life to helping ordinary Iraqis and avoided involving herself in religious and political matters.

Margaret Hassan, the director of the CARE humanitarian group’s Iraq office, has not been heard from since her driver and companion were overpowered and Hassan pulled from her car. At a news conference Thursday, her husband, Tahseen Ali Hassan, said that no group had claimed responsibility for the abduction, one of many to target aid workers in recent months.

“I don’t have anything to say to the people responsible. Just release my wife; she is Iraqi and she’s working for a humanitarian organization,” said Ali Hassan, an Iraqi native.

Margaret Hassan, who was born in Ireland and is in her 60s, has lived in Iraq for more than 30 years with her husband and holds dual citizenship.

“She was aware of the fact that foreigners were being kidnapped all over Iraq, but she never thought about leaving the country,” Ali Hassan said. “It was her decision to make. She didn’t consider herself to be a foreigner.”

Also Thursday, the company commander of a U.S. Army Reserve unit whose soldiers balked at a command to deliver fuel along the military’s main supply route because they believed it was a “suicide” mission was relieved of her command, the Army announced.

The commander of the 343rd Quartermaster Company, whose name was not released, had requested that she be relieved effective immediately, according to a statement by the 13th Corps Support Command.

“The outgoing commander is not suspected of misconduct, and this move has nothing to do with the guilt or innocence of anyone involved,” the statement said.

Eighteen soldiers from the Rock Hill, S.C.-based unit are under investigation for refusing to drive a fuel convoy from the Tallil military base near Nasiriya to Taji, north of Baghdad. Relatives say the troops believed that the mission would be too dangerous because their fuel trucks were in poor condition and they lacked an armored vehicle escort.

In another military inquiry, a U.S. Army hearing began Thursday to determine whether a soldier should face court-martial for shooting and killing a gravely wounded Iraqi. The hearing is due to continue today.

Staff Sgt. Jonathan Alban, of C Company, 1st Battalion, 41st Infantry Regiment, and another soldier of the same unit, Staff Sgt. Johnny Horne Jr., stand accused of conspiracy to commit murder. Alban, who could face the death penalty if convicted, allegedly fired his rifle several times at a man who was pulled from a burning vehicle after a battle in Baghdad’s Sadr City on Aug. 17. According to witnesses, soldiers attempted to rescue the man but were convinced that he was about to die from severe abdominal wounds and burns. The government said that Alban and two fellow soldiers decided that the best course of action was to shoot the man to put him out of his misery.

In the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, mortar rounds exploded two blocks from interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi as he visited an airport construction site. There were no reported injuries.

In Britain on Thursday, Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon told Parliament that the transfer of troops was necessary to help establish security and pave the way for the January elections.

He said that the U.S. did not have enough combat-ready, heavily armored forces to cover all of Iraq, and that the British troops were needed to play a “vital” role in readying the country for elections.

*

Morin reported from Baghdad and Daniszewski from London.