Insurgents attacked a car in the northern Iraq city of Mosul on Friday, killing three people who appeared to be CIA agents and their Iraqi driver and cutting off the head of one of the victims, witnesses said. The identities of the victims was not clear, but the witnesses said they were carrying small automatic weapons. The attackers seized the weapons before setting the car alight.

The white, American-made sedan was attacked by insurgents firing assault rifles as it drove through western Mosul, witnesses said. After the attack it was set on fire. Witnesses said one of the men appeared to be Turkish and two others looked European. One of them had been beheaded. Two of the men looked to be in their 20s and 30s and were dressed in jeans and windbreaker tops.

A fourth person, apparently an Arab, could be seen lying near the burning wreckage, his body partly consumed by flames. Witnesses said one of the foreigners was briefly taken hostage by the insurgents. When he tried to flee they decapitated him, leaving the head lying in a pool of blood near his body on the street. A crowd quickly gathered around the bodies and the burning wreckage.