Ten killed in Iraq convoy attack

Civilian contractors are regularly targeted by insurgents

At least 10 Iraqis have been killed and an African engineer kidnapped in an ambush in the west of Baghdad, an Interior Ministry official says.

The seven bodyguards and three drivers were killed when their three-vehicle convoy was attacked by gunmen in a tunnel in the Jamia district.

The Iraqis and the African were working for the Egyptian-owned mobile phone company, Iraqna.

There have been a number of foreigners kidnapped in Iraq in recent months.

Dozens are being held in the country as well as hundreds of Iraqi citizens seized by insurgents and criminal gangs.

Abduction

The engineers had been on their way to the western suburb of Abu Ghraib to repair a transmitter station when they were attacked, officials said.

A spokesman for Iraqna was quoted by Reuters news agency saying that two African engineers were unaccounted for.

Malawi's information minister rejected reports that one of them was a Malawian.

Eight engineers working for Iraqna - six Iraqis and two Egyptians - have been kidnapped in the past.

The company, owned by Orascom Telecom, has vowed to continue operating despite the security challenges.

In other violence on Wednesday, police said the leader of the Sunni Al Bu-Julayb tribe, Sheikh Muhammad Saddaq al-Battah, was shot dead in a flat in the western Baghdad neighbourhood of Bayaa along with his nephew and one other person.