IRAQ Attack targets a U.S. convoy

Also, gunmen ambushed the convoy of an Iraqi Governing Council member, killing her son.
ABU GHRAIB, Iraq (AP) -- U.S. soldiers escorting a convoy of buses filled with Abu Ghraib prison inmates being released came under attack today, but there were no reports of casualties. Two U.S. soldiers were wounded in Kufa despite an agreement to end fighting between U.S. forces and Shiite insurgents.
The prisoners had just left the Abu Ghraib facility -- the center of a scandal involving abuse of detainees by American soldiers -- when someone fired shots from buildings near the freeway. The soldiers hunkered down and the convoy of at least 13 buses stopped. The shooting ended quickly.
It was the third major release from the facility since the scandal broke over the abuse of detainees last month.
Humvee under fire
In Kufa, the two Americans were wounded when their humvee came under small arms fire today, the U.S. military in Baghdad said. There were no further details of the attack, which occurred one day after Shiite leaders announced a deal with radical Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr to halt the fighting between U.S. troops and the radical militia, the al-Mahdi Army.
The U.S.-run coalition was not a party to the agreement but agreed to stop offensive operations in Kufa and adjoining Najaf. Despite the agreement, nine mortar shells hit a U.S. base in Najaf this morning, according to CNN, which has a correspondent embedded there.
U.S. soldiers detained four suspected militia members who said they were unaware of the truce, CNN said.
Later today, explosions were heard in the Kufa area, but it was unclear what caused them. U.S. forces blocked the highways leading to the city. Members of al-Sadr's militia could be seen in Kufa's streets.
The agreement provides the Americans a way out of a standoff that threatened to alienate Iraq's Shiites -- the largest religious community. But U.S. demands for al-Sadr's arrest and disbanding his militia were unmet -- and the deal opens the door for a political role for a figure that President Bush had branded a "thug."
The deal also allows for discussions of al-Sadr's future, talks that will certainly stretch past the June 30 hand-over. The arrest warrant for al-Sadr, however, has not officially been suspended.
Council member attacked
Gunmen ambushed a convoy carrying Salama al-Khafaji, a member of the Iraqi Governing Council, as she was returning Thursday to Baghdad from mediation efforts in Najaf. She was not hurt, but at least one bodyguard and her 18-year-old son were killed. The son was first reported missing, but his body was found today, according to her aides.
The ambush occurred 10 days after the head of the governing council, Izzadine Saleem, was assassinated in a suicide car-bombing as he waited to enter the heavily guarded Green Zone, the Baghdad headquarters of the U.S.-run occupation authority.
A group believed to be led by al-Qaida-linked terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi claimed responsibility in a message posted on an Islamist Web site. However, al-Khafaji told The Associated Press she believed her attackers were Saddam Hussein loyalists who have attacked vehicles in that area before.
Al-Khafaji is one of three women on the governing council. She replaced another Shiite woman member, Aquila al-Hashemi, who was mortally wounded in September during an ambush near her Baghdad home.
She said it was clear the attack was targeted at her,
"They looked at us and knew who we were," she said. "They went away to get their weapons and came back. The attack lasted a few minutes, and my driver's priority was to speed ahead and leave the scene of the attack," she said.
Prisoners leave buses
In the attack on the prisoner buses, hundreds of relatives who had been following the convoy also stopped and then swarmed around the vehicles after the shots were fired. Prisoners then got off the buses and went home with their families.
It also came about a week after the first American accused in the abuse scandal was sentenced to a year in prison for sexually humiliating detainees and taking a photo of prisoners stacked naked in a human pyramid.
Spc. Jeremy C. Sivits received a year in prison, a reduction in rank and a bad conduct discharge -- the maximum penalty -- after pleading guilty to maltreating detainees in the first court-martial stemming from the Abu Ghraib case. Three others were arraigned and deferred pleading. They will appear before a military judge June 21.
The military periodically frees prisoners from Abu Ghraib, which was also notorious as the site of executions and torture during Saddam Hussein's regime. There are still between 3,000 and 4,000 people believed held there.
Also today, Iraqi gunmen released three veteran NBC News journalists and an Iraqi free-lancer, three days after the group was captured in Fallujah, NBC said in a statement.
The statement said local Iraqi leaders helped mediate with "armed Iraqis," who let the reporters go "after their identities as working journalists became clear."
NBC identified the four as correspondent Ned Colt, cameraman Maurice Roper, sound technician Robert Colvill and free-lance Iraqi journalist Ashraf Al Taie. It said they appeared to be in good health.
The group's Tuesday capture was never announced for security reasons, NBC said.
Japanese attacked
Gunmen attacked a car carrying two Japanese journalists late Thursday, and the car burst into flames. Today, a Japanese government spokesman said two bodies found near the site of the attack were identified as Japanese citizens.
The bodies have not been fully identified as the missing free-lance journalists, Shinsuke Hashida, 61, and his nephew, Kotaro Ogawa, 33, but hospital workers told Japanese Embassy officials that the dead were Japanese, said Yu Kameoka, a spokesman for Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi.