Suicide bomber kills 13 in Iraq

BAGHDAD, Iraq — A car bomb tore through a convoy Monday in central Baghdad, killing 13 people, including an American and four other foreigners working to rebuild Iraq's power plants. A crowd gathered, shouting "Down with the USA!" and dancing around a charred body.

The dead included three employees of Granite Services Inc., a wholly owned, Tampa, Fla.-based subsidiary of General Electric, and two security contractors, said GE spokeswoman Louise Binns in Brussels.

Passions boiled over as the crowd of youths taunted American troops and Western journalists who rushed to the scene near Tahrir Square. American troops beat one man with a stick, but after failing to restrain the crowd, the troops and police withdrew.

One civilian bystander — missing a finger from the bomb — ran up to Western reporters and shouted at them to leave.

The blast, which destroyed eight vehicles and turned nearby shops and a two-story house to rubble, is the second bombing in as many days to kill a dozen people and comes nearly two weeks before the formal end of the U.S.-led occupation,

"Nothing is more important than the safety of our employees and those supporting our efforts," Binns said in a statement. "We have taken extraordinary measures to keep them safe and we will continue to work with the Coalition Provisional Authority and Iraqi authorities to protect our people. We remain committed to the reconstruction of Iraq."

Some of the victims were in shops devastated by the blast. One elderly Iraqi man, still wearing bloodsoaked night clothes, was carried from the destruction.

Frantic Iraqis scooped up the wounded and loaded them into private cars to be taken to hospitals.

The bomb killed eight Iraqis and five foreigners, according to an official at the Interior Ministry, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The U.S. military said the dead included two Britons, one Frenchman, one American and a foreigner of undetermined nationality. More than 60 people, including 10 foreign contractors, were injured, the military said.

The bomb went off as three SUVs carrying the contractors were passing through the square. Five other vehicles were also destroyed. Scattered around one of the damaged SUVs were manuals that appeared to be for energy turbines, including one titled, "GE Energy Products, Europe."

The attack unleashed fresh anger at the United States, with crowds chanting "Down with the USA!" and burning an American flag.