Baghdad, Iraq ? Gunmen kidnapped an American and at least three foreign colleagues from their office in an upscale Baghdad neighborhood Monday, unleashing a volley of rocket-propelled grenades and automatic rifle fire on the building before dragging out their victims.

The brazen, late afternoon attack was the second kidnapping in six weeks in which Americans living or working in Baghdad’s wealthy Mansour neighborhood were targeted. Eugene Armstrong and Jack Hensley were held hostage for several days in September before their captors beheaded them. Kenneth Bigley, a British engineer abducted with Armstrong and Hensley, was beheaded later.

Also Monday, gunmen opened fire on a car carrying Baghdad province’s deputy governor, Hatim Kamil, to work, killing Kamil, Baghdad Gov. Ali al-Haidari said. Two of Kamil’s bodyguards were wounded, Interior Ministry spokesman Col. Adnan Abdul-Rahman said.

In Ramadi, a freelance cameraman working for Reuters news service was killed, apparently by a sniper, possibly a Marine, The New York Times reported.

U.S. Embassy spokesman Robert Callahan confirmed that an American was among the people taken hostage in Monday’s kidnapping. He declined to release the person’s name and said embassy officials were trying to determine what company worked out of the building.

The attack in Mansour occurred about 5:30 p.m. local time, at a time when Muslims have their iftar meal to break their daily fast during Ramadan. A fierce firefight broke out between the gunmen, armed with rocket-propelled grenades and Kalashnikov rifles, and the office’s security detail, according to the Arab television network Al-Arabiya.

During the gun battle, a security officer protecting the building and one of the gunmen were killed, Callahan said. Abdul-Rahman said that an Asian and two Arabs also were seized. The Associated Press reported that the American’s colleagues who were kidnapped are a Nepalese man and four Iraqis.

Al-Arabiya reported that a Saudi company was working out of the building. As of late Monday, no one had claimed responsibility for the kidnapping and no demands had been made.

“The embassy is doing everything possible to investigate and see what we can do,” Callahan said.

Also Monday, American artillery struck suspected insurgent positions in Fallujah, and residents reported to the Associated Press that new air and artillery attacks were happening there.

The order to launch what would likely be a bloody assault must come from Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, who warned Sunday that his patience with negotiations was thinning.

U.S. and Iraqi officials hope to curb the insurgency in time for national elections by the end of January.