Insurgents killed eight people in Iraq yesterday including a senior Interior Ministry official gunned down near his home, and two Jordanian drivers were the latest foreigners to be seized in a spiralling hostage crisis.
The surge in attacks, including two car bombings, marked a fresh security challenge to the interim government ahead of a major political gathering expected this week.
The US military said a suicide car bomb exploded outside an American base near the northern city of Mosul, killing an Iraqi woman, her child and an Iraqi guard.
Three US soldiers and two Iraqi security staff were wounded. The military said the car was packed with mortar shells, but these did not detonate, lessening the impact.
In Baghdad, gunmen shot Mussab al-Awadi, a top official in charge of tribal affairs, as he left his house, an Interior Ministry source said. Two bodyguards were also killed.
Gunmen also opened fire on five women who work as cleaners for US firm Bechtel in the southern city of Basra, killing two and wounding two others, one survivor said. The women were waiting for a bus to take them to work when they were attacked.
"I pretended to be dead so they didn't shoot me. I was covered in the blood of my friends," said an emotional Montaha Khalil, who was unhurt.
Insurgents have stepped up suicide car bombings, assassinations and kidnappings since a brief lull when the interim government took over from US-led occupiers on June 28.
Police said no one was hurt in a separate car bombing in Baghdad, which coincided with several mortar attacks that wounded one person. A bomb also exploded under a car in Tikrit, north of Baghdad, wounding several people, police said.
Despite the violence, Iraq has said it will push ahead later this week with a national conference aiming to give Iraqis a real say in how their country is run.
The United Nations has pushed for a delay, saying more time is needed to prepare for an event that will bring together 1,000 Iraqis to select a 100-member National Council to oversee the interim government until elections next year.
It is due to begin around tomorrow and will last two or possibly three days, officials have said.
Insurgents bent on undermining the interim government have also stepped up their campaign of hostage-taking to increase pressure on foreign troops and companies to leave.
Militants kidnapped two Jordanian drivers and are threatening them with execution, a source close to the company they work for said yesterday.
The source said militants had given the company 72 hours to stop working with the American military in Iraq. He said the two were seized when they left a US base near Qaim, near the Iraqi-Syrian border.