BAGHDAD - Four aid workers -- two Canadians, a Briton and an American -- have been reported kidnapped in Iraq and three British pilgrims killed in a bus shooting in a new surge of violence against foreigners.

The attacks came as the trial of ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and seven former regime henchmen were due to go on trial on charges including murder and torture over a 1982 Shiite massacre.

The governments of the hostages, however, have not released any further details on the four, such as the organizations the workers belonged to or the circumstances of the kidnapping.

The British Foreign Office, which only revealed that the kidnapped Briton was named Norman Kemp, said the matter was under investigation.

Another three British nationals of Indian origin were killed on Monday when a small bus carrying Shiite pilgrims came under fire in southern Baghdad, security sources said. Three other pilgrims were injured, along with the Iraqi driver.

The British embassy in Baghdad could not immediately confirm that the victims were Britons.

A US tank was also hit Monday by a roadside bomb, though there were no casualties, the US military said.

Kidnappings of foreigners have been on the decline in recent months, especially since the numbers of foreign aid workers dropped sharply in the wake of a spate of abductions last year.

British-Irish aid worker Margaret Hassan was kidnapped in October 2004 on her way to work in Baghdad. The head of CARE International's Iraq operations was reported to have been executed by her captors a month later.

The body of Hassan, who had lived in Iraq for over 30 years and was married to an Iraqi, has never been found.

Italian aid workers Simona Torretta and Simona Pari were freed 21 days after their September 2004 abduction, reportedly in exchange for surgical treatment for wounded insurgents.

Dozens of foreigners have been kidnapped in Iraq since the US-led invasion of March 2003, with many appearing in videos pleading for their lives before being brutally murdered.

Many such killings have been claimed by the group of Al-Qaeda in Iraq led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Despite the continuing violence, President Jalal Talabani said he had received calls from people claiming to be linked to the insurgency and who said they were ready to engage in political talks.

"We salute all those who want to engage in dialogue," he said.

Talabani said he was prepared to talk to all insurgents, except from Al-Qaeda in Iraq and Ansar Al-Islam, two of the most radical groups responsible for some of the deadliest attacks against civilians in Iraq.

Despite Talabani's outreach, the leader of the largest party in parliament, Abdul Aziz Hakim, lamented what he said were US "obstacles" to Iraqi forces dealing with rebels.

US forces are sometimes "an obstacle preventing Iraqi forces from taking the right course," the leader of the Shiite Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq told AFP.

"US mistakes have cost us dearly in the past and still cost us dearly today."

Former Iraqi prime minister Iyad Allawi, likely to be a top candidate in the December general election, said in an interview with a British newspaper that human rights abuses in Iraq were now as bad, or worse, than when Saddam was in power.

The White House meanwhile said a plan for US troops to leave Iraq revealed by a Democratic senator was in fact its own.

According to Senator Joseph Biden, the United States will move about 50,000 servicemen out of the country by the end of 2006, and "a significant number" of the remaining 100,000 the year after.

The blueprint also calls for leaving only an unspecified "small force" either in Iraq or across the border to strike at concentrations of insurgents, if necessary.

The plan comes amid increasing debate over the US role in Iraq.

Two members of Congress were injured in a car accident the Iraqi capital and flown to a US military hospital in Germany Sunday, officials said.

Representative Ike Skelton, a Democrat from Missouri and the ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee, and his Republican colleague, Tim Murphy, suffered non-life threatening injuries.

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