Gunmen opened fire on a minibus carrying power plant workersin a predominantly Sunni area west of Kirkukon Wednesday, killing five, an army commander said.

The ambush occurred at 6 a.m. in Manazlah, about 20 miles west of theoil-rich city of Kirkuk,as the bus was taking the employees to work at the Mullah Abdullah powerstation, Maj. Gen. Anwar Mohammed Amin said.

The gunmen were in two cars and sprayed the bus with bullets as they sped byit.

The five killed were engineers and other plant workers from the surroundingBeiji area, Amin said, citing information from soldiers at the site.

The attack came two days after a suicide truck bomber struck a police stationin a Kurdish neighborhood in Kirkuk, killing 15people, including a newborn girl and a U.S. soldier. Nearly 200 peoplewere wounded.

Tensions have been rising in the disputed city after thegovernment adopted a plan to relocate thousands of Arabs who were moved to Kirkuk decades ago inSaddam Hussein's campaign to displace the Kurds.

Two mortar rounds also slammed into a house in the town of Khalis,50 miles north of Baghdad,just after midnight, killing a woman and wounding two other women and a4-year-old boy, police said.

Another mortar attack struck a area in eastern Baghdad, wounding five civilians and damagingsome houses, police said.