Al-Qaida-linked insurgents in Iraq yesterday claimed responsibility for ambushing a three-vehicle convoy in western Baghdad on Wednesday during which three foreigners and an Iraqi were killed.

The insurgents posted a statement on a website regularly used by Al-Qaida in Iraq, saying that in an attack with light and medium weapons and RPG rockets in the Yarmouk area in Baghdad on Jan. 17 ... two vehicles belonging to Israel's Mossad were destroyed and a third one severely damaged.

The authenticity of the statement could not be verified.

Gunmen opened fire at a three-vehicle convoy on Wednesday in Yarmouk, a predominantly Sunni neighborhood in western Baghdad, killing a U.S. national, a Croatian and a Hungarian along with an Iraqi guard, security sources said.

The female U.S. citizen had worked for the National Democratic Institute (NDI), a non-governmental organization that provides support for political parties in Iraq, according to a NDI official.

The Croatian, Hungarian and Iraqi were guards working for the Australian security agency Unity Resources Group (URG), the sources said.