A US jet bombed Wednesday a suspected insurgent target in central Iraq, as gunmen killed an Iraqi nuclear scientist.
Five American soldiers and an Iraqi civilian were wounded in their car, which was hit by a car bomb near Hawija, some 240km north of here, the US military said.
The massacre came a day after Iraq's interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi blamed the upsurge of violence on a campaign by insurgents to foment sectarian civil war as well as derail elections set for Jan 30.
Allawi said the mainly Sunni Muslim insurgents, blamed for Sunday's bombings in the Shiite holy cities of Najaf and Karbala, want to ?create ethnic and religious tensions, problems and conflicts ... to destroy the unity of this country.?
The co-ordinated bombings killed 67 people and injured almost 200 in one of the bloodiest attacks on civilians this year.
Early yesterday, a US aircraft engaged an ?enemy position'' with precision-guided missiles west of here, the military said.
