BAGHDAD, Iraq The U-S military is denying a newspaper report that the bodies of four American contractors killed in Iraq were set on fire by a mob.

The military says all four were in their vehicles with bullet wounds and one of them was burned from a vehicle fire. It says another one was injured but later died of his wounds.

The contractors were ambushed by insurgents last month after their convoy got lost in a town north of Baghdad.

A British newspaper that first reported the attack yesterday said a mob dragged the bodies from the vehicles and set them on fire.

Major Richard Goldenberg tells The Associated Press soldiers in his task-force returned to the area two days later and killed two insurgents after coming under fire.

The Washington Post says the killings bring to 320 the number of non-Iraqi civilian contractors killed in the reports since the start of the war in March 2003.

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