BAGHDAD (AFP) - Iraq suffered a fresh blow as the foreign aid group CARE halted its operations in the violence-wracked country after the kidnapping of a top relief worker, while a car bomb blew up in Baghdad.
US-led air raids meanwhile destroyed two alleged safe houses of Islamic militant Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi's network in the rebel-held city of Fallujah.
They struck "two adjoining Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi terrorist safe houses in northeast Fallujah," the US military said Wednesday.
There was no immediate report of casualties.
The kidnapping of the CARE official and latest violence once more undermined efforts by the US-backed interim government to restore stability ahead of national elections promised in January.
Margaret Hassan, who was born in Ireland and has lived in Iraq for three decades, was snatched by gunmen on her way to work in Baghdad on Tuesday in the latest hostage crisis that has already claimed scores of foreign and Iraqi lives.
Britain, Ireland and the United States condemned the abduction and said they would work to release CARE's top Baghdad staffer, who has both British and -- through her husband -- Iraqi citizenship.
"This is someone who has lived in Iraq for 30 years, someone who is immensely respected, someone who is doing their level best to help the country," British Prime Minister Tony Blair said.
He was speaking just days after another hostage, Kenneth Bigley, became the first Briton to be beheaded in the war-battered country.
Britain's embassy in Baghdad said it was working with the Iraqi authorities to establish what had happened. "Consulate officials are in touch with next of kin," a spokeswoman added.
Hassan's abduction was a further sign of the insurgents' willingness to strike at workers from humanitarian agencies, after two Italian aid workers were taken in early September.
The two women were released after a three-week ordeal.
Adding to the tension in Baghdad, a suicide car bomb exploded Wednesday on the road to the international airport, killing only the driver, while a roadside bomb blew up near a US vehicle but caused no casualties, the US army said.
"There was a VBIED (vehicle-borne improvised explosive device) on the airport road but there were no civilians around and no multinational forces," said spokesman Major Philip Smith.
US soldiers in Iraq and the newly-formed Iraqi security forces are near daily targets in an insurgency that has raged since last year's invasion.
The country's national guard bore the brunt of an attack Tuesday when mortar rounds hit a base north of the capital, killing four and wounding 82 other people.
A separate mortar and rocket barrage, left one US contractor dead and seven other people wounded at a US army compound in the capital.
Kellogg Brown and Root, a subsidiary of the US oil services giant Halliburton, confirmed its employee was killed, bringing to 54 the number of deaths suffered by Halliburton and its subcontractors in Iraq.
Determined to flush out pockets of insurgency, more than 1,000 US and Iraqi maintained a circle around the western city of Fallujah for a seventh day, a US military spokesman said.
US and Iraqi officials believe Fallujah has been transformed into the main base for the Jordanian-born Zarqawi and his followers, who are blamed for a slew of car bombings and kidnappings across the country.
Prime Minister Iyad Allawi has promised to send aid worth two million dollars to the city and the International Committee of the Red Cross has also dispatched urgent medical and surgical equipment to a hospital there.
Talks between the government and a delegation team from Fallujah, however, broke down last week after Allawi issued them an ultimatum to hand over Zarqawi, who the delegation deny is in the city.
At the same time, both sides have indicated that they are open to fresh negoatiations.
With the US military focused on resolving the Fallujah stand-off, Washington has called on top ally Britain to move some of its 8,500-strong contingent in the relative calm of southern Iraq to more unstable areas.
Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon announced Monday that Britain was considering the move and that a decision would be reached later in the week after consultations with military top brass.