Civilian Killed in Iraq Named

HILLAH, Iraq — A U.S. woman killed with another American and an Iraqi along an isolated stretch of road this week was an advocate for women’s rights and often seen driving in this area south of Baghdad without a security escort, police said Thursday.

“She had no security, no weapons,” said a police officer who asked to not be named. “This is the way she always worked.”

The woman, identified as Fern Holland, was killed Tuesday evening along with a colleague and an Iraqi interpreter by gunmen reportedly dressed as Iraqi police. The other victims were not immediately identified.

Holland, 33, and her colleague were the first American civilian staffers of the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority to be killed.

A spokesman for L. Paul Bremer III, the U.S. administrator in Iraq, called the killings “a targeted act of terrorism” and said the FBI had been asked to investigate.

It was unclear whether the trio was targeted because of Holland’s work in an overwhelmingly Muslim nation where women are often treated as second-class citizens.

Five men were taken into custody after the shooting, though their alleged roles were unknown. U.S. officials would not say whether the attackers were police officers, impostors or someone else.

Iraqi police said they did not know of anyone dressed as police officers being involved. The assailants probably had monitored the movements of Holland and those accompanying her for some time before the attack, police said. She frequently traveled among women’s centers in Hillah and Karbala.

“They always used to say hello to us when they passed,” said Nasir Omran, a police officer at a checkpoint outside Hillah. “This was a very sad matter.”

The attack appeared more likely to be an assassination than a robbery or crime of opportunity, police said. Officers theorized that Holland’s car was pursued before it was overtaken and the killers opened fire with automatic weapons.

Roads throughout Iraq are extremely dangerous. Bands of armed thieves roam the major highways, as do assassins who seek out Westerners or anyone suspected of cooperating with the U.S.-led coalition.

Insurgent forces have said they consider anyone working with the coalition as a collaborator in the occupation and therefore a target.

Coalition employees generally travel with a security escort, especially while outside Baghdad. Why the three apparently had no accompanying security Tuesday was unclear.

Elsewhere in Iraq, attackers shot and killed two Iraqi women late Wednesday as they returned home from their jobs as laundry workers for the coalition in the southern city of Basra, a coalition spokeswoman said. She said the two might have been killed for “personal” reasons that had nothing to do with their connection to the coalition.

American officials announced Thursday that three U.S. soldiers were killed and three injured in two separate roadside bombings outside Baghdad. The deaths bring to 556 the number of U.S. troops who have died in Iraq since the American-led invasion almost a year ago.

Times staff writer Patrick J. McDonnell in Baghdad contributed to this report.