Cairo, Egypt ? An al-Qaida-linked coalition of Iraqi Sunni insurgents claimed responsibility Thursday for an attack in Baghdad on a convoy of a Western democracy institute that killed a 28-year-old Ohio woman and three security contractors.

The Washington-based National Democratic Institute identified its slain staffer as Andrea Parhamovich, of Perry, Ohio. Contractors from Hungary, Croatia and Iraq also were killed in the ambush Wednesday. Two other people were wounded, one seriously.

Parhamovich, a graduate of Marietta College in southeast Ohio, had been working with NDI in Iraq since late 2006 as a communications specialist advising Iraqi political parties on how to reach out to voters and constituents. She was helping “build the kind of national level political institutions that can help bridge the sectarian divide and improve Iraqi lives,” NDI said.