A crowd of cheering Iraqis dragged charred and mutilated bodies through the streets of Falluja today after an attack on two vehicles that witnesses said killed at least three foreigners.
Earlier the US military said five coalition soldiers were killed in a bomb attack west of Baghdad.
The Falluja crowd set the two four-wheel-drive vehicles ablaze after the attack and threw stones into the burning wreckage.
Television pictures showed one incinerated body being kicked and stamped on by a member of the jubilant crowd, while others dragged a blackened body down the road by its feet.
The footage showed at least three people lying dead, while some witnesses said that four were killed. It was not clear how many people were in the vehicles.
As one body lay burning on the ground, an Iraqi came and doused it with petrol, sending flames soaring.
At least two bodies were tied to cars and pulled through the streets, witnesses said.
Some body parts were pulled off and left hanging from a pole, while two incinerated bodies were later strung from a bridge over the road and left dangling there.
It was unclear who was travelling in the vehicles, both four-wheel drives of the type used by foreign contractors, journalists, civilian members of the US-led occupying forces and some military personnel. Witnesses said they saw anywhere between four and eight people in the cars before they were attacked.
Some of the victims were wearing civilian clothes, flak jackets and were armed, witnesses said, but that was not clear from the television footage.
As the victims lay burning, a crowd of around 150 men chanted "Long live Islam" and "Allahu Akbar" ("God is Greatest") while flashing victory signs.
The attack came shortly after the US military said five coalition soldiers were killed in a roadside bomb attack west of Baghdad. A spokesman declined to say what nationality the soldiers were or where exactly the attack occurred.
The vast majority of the troops operating in the al-Anbar province west of Baghdad, which includes the towns of Falluja and Ramadi, are US Marines.
Separately car bomb blew up in Baquba today, a town about 40 km north of Baghdad, wounding around a dozen people.