Pat Dollard | Young Americans

BAGHDAD (AP) - The mayor of the religiously mixed town of Iskandariyah was killed along with four of his guards in a roadside bomb attack Thursday, police said.

Abbas Hassan Hamza, who belonged to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al- Maliki’s Dawa party, was killed about 10:30 a.m. as he headed to work about 30 miles south of Baghdad, according to a police officer who spoke on condition of anonymity for security reasons.

Hamza’s convoy was targeted by the blast, which also wounded a fifth guard, police said.

In Baghdad, a car bomb exploded near people on line at a gas station, killing four civilians and wounding eight others, police said.

The device had been placed in a car parked about 110 yards from the station in the southeastern Baghdad area of Zafaraniyah, according to a police officer who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information.

The attack came a day after an ambush with bombs and gunfire left Poland’s ambassador pinned inside a burning vehicle before he was pulled to safety and airlifted in a rescue mission by the embattled security firm Blackwater USA. At least three people were killed, including a Polish bodyguard.

Wednesday’s apparently well-planned attack in one of Baghdad’s most secure neighborhoods—raised questions about whether Poland had been targeted for its contributions to the U.S.-led military force in Iraq. Poland’s prime minister, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, said his nation would not retreat “in the face of terrorists.”

The Iraqi foreign ministry denounced the attack, calling it a cowardly “criminal assassination attempt” aimed at “damaging the strong relations between Iraq and Poland.”

The diplomatic convoy was hit by three bombs before attackers opened fire in the Shiite-controlled Karradah district. Polish guards returned fire as the injured ambassador, Gen. Edward Pietrzyk, was pulled from his burning vehicle. At least 10 people, including four Polish security agents, were wounded.

U.S. Embassy officials dispatched Blackwater helicopters to evacuate the ambassador and others. Blackwater was not involved in protecting the Polish convoy.

Pietrzyk, who was commander of ground forces in Poland before taking the ambassador post in April, suffered minor burns over 20 percent of his body, including his head and right arm and leg, said Polish Charge d’Affaires Waldemar Figaj.

“They were waiting for us,” Figaj told The Associated Press.

Poland, a staunch U.S. ally, contributed combat troops to the 2003 U.S.-led invasion and has since led a multinational division south of Baghdad. About 900 Polish troops remain in the country training Iraqi personnel; 21 Poles have died during the conflict.

Last year, the Polish government extended its mission in Iraq until the end of 2007, but has made no decision on next year.

Two Iraqi passers-by also were killed in the 10 a.m. blasts, according to an Iraqi police official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information.

A Polish security guard, Bartosz Orzechowski, 29, died at the hospital, said Poland’s Interior Minister Wladyslaw Stasiak. The slain guard had been employed by the service since 2004.

Authorities at the scene confiscated an AP Television News videotape that contained scenes of the wounded being evacuated.

U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. Scott Bleichwehl told the AP Thursday that the tape was in the hands of the U.S. military and would be returned to the AP shortly.

The camera operator said he was handcuffed and detained by the U.S. troops at the scene for 40 minutes. He said he was kept inside an American Humvee, then released. He said the Americans took the tape but returned his camera upon his release.

The Iraqi government passed a law earlier this year making it illegal to video tape or photograph the aftermath of attacks and bombings.