A leading female Iraqi politician has died from gun shot wounds. Akila al-Hashemi was one of three of women who sat on the US-backed Iraqi Governing Council. She was attacked on Saturday and had been fighting for her life ever since. She was hit in the abdomen when her car came under fire near her home in western Baghdad. The politician was a former Ba'ath party member and served in the Iraqi Foreign Ministry under toppled leader Saddam Hussein. **US Soldier, British Serviceman Die*** A British soldier has died in a "tragic firearms incident" in Iraq, the British Ministry of Defence said Thursday. He was based at Shaibah, near Basra, when the incident happened on Tuesday. A British spokesman said the circumstances of the death are being investigated, but the soldier did not die as a result of enemy action. Earlier it was reported that a U.S. military vehicle was hit with an explosion in the northern Iraq city of Mosul on Thursday, leaving at least four American soldiers "badly wounded", according to witnesses. About ten witnesses reported seeing the "bodies of four U.S. soldiers", AFP reported, but there was no confirmation of their condition after the blast on a main road in front of the telecommunications center. For its part, the U.S. military said it had no report of the blast, which witnesses said occurred at 9:30 am (local time). Meanwhile, a U.S. soldier was killed and two others were injured in a military vehicle accident in Balad, north of the capital city of Baghdad, the U.S. army said Thursday. The soldiers involved in Wednesday's crash were from the 220th Military Police Brigade, according to an army press release. **UN Cuts Staff in Baghdad*** In another development, the U.N. staff of international aid workers in Iraq was reduced to 86 people Thursday and it will further cut in the next few days, a U.N. spokesman said. "The secretary-general, on the advice of his security coordinator, has ordered a temporary redeployment of U.N. international staff in Iraq," said the chief U.N. spokesman, Fred Eckhard. "This is not an evacuation, just a further downsizing and the security situation in the country remains under constant review," he conveyed. The international staff was redeployed to Amman, Jordan, he added. **PHOTO CAPTION*** Iraqi's hold bullet casings from a gun fight at an explosion site where a US military vehicle was attacked in Mosul, northern Iraq. (AFP/Robert Sullivan)