BAGHDAD, Iraq — Gunmen killed two Finnish businessmen as they drove in Baghdad on Monday, the latest foreign civilians to die in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion a year ago. In the southern city of Basra, 14 British troops were wounded in two explosions during a demonstration.
British soldiers fired tear gas at about 500 unemployed Iraqi civilians protesting a failure to get jobs with the local customs police, the chief of Basra customs Col. Zafer Abdel-Nabi said. The crowd threw rocks, petrol bombs and a grenade at troops; six civilians were injured, he said.
A British Ministry of Defense spokesman said the soldiers — three of whom were seriously wounded — were evacuated to a nearby British military hospital at Shaibah.
British television showed demonstrators throwing rocks at soldiers riding tanks and standing behind plastic shields. Two Associated Press photographs showed a British soldier running down a street with his head and shoulders on fire.
Some demonstrators shouted slogans in support of Saddam Hussein and condemned Israel's killing of Hamas founder Ahmed Yassin in Gaza City, witnesses said. "We are all sons of Yassin," they shouted.
The two Finns were killed near a highway underpass in west Baghdad, according to Iraqi witnesses. The victims' Iraqi driver was unhurt.
The Finns were part of a nine-person technological delegation visiting the Iraqi capital, said Markus Lyra, a Foreign Ministry official in Helsinki. "The men were on their way to the Ministry of Electricity to make business contacts as part of a larger group," he said.
The assailants fled, and there were no reports of arrests.
The victims were Seppo Haapanen, an employee of Entso, a Finnish company that specializes in electricity and power networks; and Jorma Toronen, of Air-Ix, which builds railways, the Foreign Ministry said.