Iran says gunmen tried to assassinate embassy staff

(CNN) -- Iran is calling the shooting and wounding of its embassy personnel in Baghdad an "assassination attempt," Iranian media reported Friday.

Iran's Foreign Ministry also blames "distrustful" U.S. security measures for contributing to such incidents, according to a report Friday in the country's Islamic Republic News Agency.

"The onus is on the occupying forces to ensure security of embassy personnel in Baghdad. The distrustful safety measures taken by U.S. military forces in Iraq have become a serious cause for concern as it is stoking instability in the country," Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad-Ali Hosseini is quoted as saying.

"The Islamic Republic is determined to launch extensive investigations on the assassination attempt and will pursue the incident through Iraqi officials," Hosseini added.

The allegations followed conflicting accounts of Thursday's shooting.

An initial bulletin on IRNA's Web site said, "U.S. agents carried [out] terror attacks on Iranian Embassy staff in Baghdad," and another posted eight minutes later said, "Iran holds the U.S. government responsible for terror attacks on Iranian Embassy staff in Baghdad."

But IRNA reported on Friday that four Iranian Embassy staff members and diplomats were seriously injured when "unknown terrorists" shot at their car on Thursday.

An Iraqi Interior Ministry report said unidentified gunmen in northern Baghdad fired on two SUVs carrying five employees and a driver -- all of whom were transported to an Iraqi hospital for treatment.

The Baghdad Operations Command, however, reported that an Iraqi army patrol was shot at and returned fire at the SUVs -- injuring the embassy workers and their driver, according to the official.

The U.S. military on Friday said the Iraqi Army found four wounded Iranian nationals in a vehicle near Baghdad on Thursday, and that the Iraqi police are investigating.

Col. Jerry O'Hara, a U.S. military spokesman, emphasized the United States "was in no way involved in this attack," refuting press reports that indicated American forces were involved.

Other developments:

A suicide car bomber killed seven people, including a 6-month-old girl and four policemen, and wounded nine near a police station in Fallujah, an Iraqi Interior Ministry official said.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said he will grant amnesty for some gunmen in the northern province of Nineveh and its capital, Mosul, if they turn in their medium and heavy weapons to security forces and tribal leaders.

A civilian was killed and three others were wounded in a roadside bombing in central Baghdad on Friday, the Interior Ministry said. In southeastern Baghdad, a roadside bombing wounded two other civilians.

A suicide bomber detonated explosives, but did not cause any casualties, at a police station checkpoint in Falluja in Anbar province Friday, police said.

As a cease-fire between Shiite militants and security forces took hold in Baghdad's Sadr City, U.S. soldiers battled fighters Thursday night in Shula, killing six people. Soldiers killed one person when troops were attacked with rocket-propelled grenades and small-arms fire, according to the U.S. military.

CNN's Jomana Karadsheh contributed to this report.

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