Three British soldiers die as gunmen shoot at Basra patrol

Three members of the Royal Military Police were killed and a fourth was seriously injured when their four-wheel-drive vehicle came under attack by gunmen yesterday morning in the southern Iraqi city of Basra.

Two civilians were also shot dead by US soldiers north of Baghdad yesterday, and with these and 23 killed in Tuesday's suicide bombing of the UN headquarters, the Basra ambush brings to an end the bloodiest week in the country since George Bush declared the formal military conflict over on 1 May. Ten British troops, 64 American ones and several hundred civilians have now been killed since that date.

The attack in Basra came at about 8.30am local time (05.30 BST), when the uniformed British soldiers, who were armed, made a routine journey down one of the city's main roads in two vehicles. The second vehicle, a Nissan four-wheel drive of the type used by the Coalition Provisional Authority, then came under attack from a pick-up truck.

BBC Arabic Service journalist Issam al-Ainachi, who was on the scene 10 minutes after the attack, said: "The British vehicle left the British army headquarters. An Iraqi pick-up followed it, and some of the people inside who were carrying guns started shooting at the British army car. Then one of the people in the Iraqi car threw a bomb on the British Army car which killed the three British servicemen and injured the fourth."

He was immediately taken to hospital and the area sealed off by troops who then began searching vehicles.

A passer-by was thought to have been killed in the crossfire, and there were unconfirmed reports that a mother and her two children were injured when the out-of-control troops' vehicle crashed into a building.

Staff working at the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in Basra as well as the military were immediately put on a high state of alert after the killings. Dominic d'Angelo, CPA spokesman in Basra, said a decision was taken to immediately suspend travel in the city. CPA workers are now being taken to and from work at their headquarters under heavily armed military escort.

Basra and the rest of the Shia-dominated south have been relatively peaceful, but the past two weeks have seen increasing signs of trouble and discontent among the Shia. British troops had to contain riots in Basra two weeks ago, and, just over a week ago, a British soldier, Captain David Jones, was killed in a bomb attack in the city. Mr d'Angelo said: "Up until this attack we thought things had been calming down in the city and this region following the riots outside the CPA headquarters two weeks ago. We are all very shocked by this attack."

Some UN staff returned to work in tents set up at the battered Canal Hotel compound. Investigators and soldiers searched piles of debris there for human remains and clues in the deadly suicide truck bombing Tuesday that killed at least 23 people, including UN envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello.

Major Mark Johnston said soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division had taken control of security at the bombed hotel. "It's still a dangerous site. We are still in the recovery stage," he said. Iraqi employees and guards at the compound were being questioned by American authorities on the suspicion that the attack could have been an inside job. Many of the security guards at the hotel had been in place before the war and were linked to Saddam Hussein's security service, according to the Americans.

Bernard Kerik, the former New York police commissioner who is working to re-establish an Iraqi police force, said the placement of the truck bomb and the timing of Tuesday's attack had raised suspicions. The truck was as close as it could have been to the office of Mr Vieira de Mello and the bomb went off as a high-level meeting was in progress. "Would the security guards have access to that information?" Mr Kerik asked.

Two UN employees are still unaccounted for and an unknown number of people still buried in the rubble. Independent checks at area hospitals showed at least 23 died in the blast.