A NEWPORT aid worker in Iraq was attacked twice as she tried to take vital supplies to people living in the besieged town of Najaf.

Helen Williams, from Westfield Way, Newport has spent most of the past year in Iraq, helping those affected by the war and the violence that has followed it.

Mrs Williams, 35, was travelling from Baghdad to Najaf in an ambulance, on Thursday in an aid convoy with Red Cross staff taking water and food supplies to the city when a roadside bomb exploded near their vehicles.

She said: "All of a sudden there was a huge explosion. The impact of which seemed to burst against the side of the ambulance and the glass in the window shattered.

"I did not know what it was, but I knew it was bad and, straight away and instinctively fell to my knees and grabbed Wejdy (the translator) pulling him down on top of me, making us into a tight ball, as small as possible in the bottom of the ambulance."

The driver of the ambulance kept control of the vehicle despite the explosion and Mrs Williams escaped without serious injury, but one of the Iraqi volunteers suffered 40 shrapnel wounds.

She said: "Had we crashed after the attack, the implication are too horrible to consider - we could have been stuck on the road and come under fire from whoever had attacked us."

The Iraqi people who were travelling with the convoy said they believed the group had been deliberately targeted but it was unclear who was responsible for the attack.

The holy city of Najaf has been under siege as US forces and militia loyal to Shia cleric Moqtada al Sadr have clashed over the past month. Yesterday warplanes and helicopters fired on the rebels.

After delivering medical aid to and treating Najaf residents injured in the fighting, Mrs Williams returned north along the same road towards Baghdad when another bomb exploded.

She said: "A huge explosion in front of us threw up loads of dirt and debris and the road disappeared in a cloud of smoke. We drove on quickly.

"There was no way we could stop, we had to keep going. To stop would have surely meant that we would have been killed."

Mrs Williams is now back in Baghdad where she is working with the city's street children left orphaned and homeless following the war.