Six British soldiers killed in southern Iraq were shot dead after confronting angry demonstrators, residents said, as British Prime Minister Tony Blair ruled out sending more troops to the country. Meanwhile, the US overseer in Iraq, Paul Bremer, blamed members of Saddam Hussein's banned Baath party for the sabotage that he said was responsible for what are now two days without electrical power in Baghdad. Iraq's Northern Oil Co. said Wednesday the latest attack a day earlier targeted an oil pipeline northwest of Baghdad that supplies a refinery and a power plant in the capital. Speaking in the House of Commons after Tuesday's incident in Al-Majar Al-Kabir, a Shiite town in southern Iraq, Blair said the security situation was "still obviously serious". But he said he was told earlier Wednesday by Chief of Defence Staff General Sir Michael Walker that commanders in Iraq felt they had enough troops on the ground. He suggested that the incident might have resulted from attempts by British forces to disarm Iraqis around the town, which is midway between Baghdad and Iraq's second city, Basra. "There had been problems in relation to that, and that may form part of the background to it but at the moment it is simply too early to say," Blair said. On Iraq as a whole, Blair said: "There are real problems, but there are also real improvements. In Al-Majar Al-Kabir, residents said the six soldiers died in a shootout with local people. Another eight Britons and 17 Iraqis were injured in firefights when the troops were confronted by a crowd of around 300 people. Locals were angered by British troops carrying out house searches with dogs, one resident said. Islam considers dogs unclean. Meanwhile, the head of a power station in western Baghdad was shot dead Wednesday by unknown gunmen, an electricity official said, adding that the murder could have been carried out by "feeble-minded" residents upset over the power cuts. US overseer Bremer, speaking to journalists in Baghdad, blamed the power outage in the capital on Baathists. "The problem is due to sabotage of the power lines between Beiji and Baghdad. We are doing everything we can to fix this as quickly as possible," he said. "Almost certainly the saboteurs are rogue Baathist elements," Bremer said. An Arab satellite channel on Wednesday broadcast footage of what appeared to be an explosion under a U.S. military vehicle in Iraq and said a previously unknown group sent the video tape vowing further attacks soon. The Qatar-based al-Jazeera television said it also received a statement in Arabic from the group calling itself Mujahidoo al-Ta'ifa al-Mansoura (Muslim Fighters of the Victorious Group) claiming responsibility for several attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq as well as the cassette of one of the operations. The statement "urged Iraqis to stay away from U.S. forces for their own safety because the group planned further attacks in the near future," Jazeera said, showing a copy of the brief statement in Arabic. Nineteen U.S. soldiers have been killed by hostile fire in Iraq since President Bush declared major combat over on May 1. Washington has blamed remnant loyalists of ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein for the attacks. U.S.-led forces overthrew Saddam on April 9 after a three-week war. On Tuesday, six British troops were killed and eight wounded in Iraq in the worst single death toll sustained by British and U.S. forces since March 23, three days into the war. The hazy footage broadcast by Jazeera showed what looked like a military vehicle parked under a tree as an explosion rocked it. Jazeera said the group did not clarify the date of the attack in a Baghdad suburb, which the group said was carried out by one of its units, the Martyr Khattab group, or whether there were any casualties. **PHOTO CAPTION*** Iraqi children watch a US soldier from the Bravo Company 1st Battalion 124th Infantry Regiment conducting foot patrol in Ramadi, 80 kilometers west of Baghdad, Iraq, Wednesday, June 25, 2003. Security has been stepped up as the US forces have been under increasing target of guerilla-style attacks. Another firefight in Ramadi Tuesday killed three Iraqis and wounded an American soldier. (AP Photo/Ali Haider)