[NYTr] Mercenaries kill two women in Baghdad

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

AFP - Oct 9, 2007
http://www.afp.com/english/news/stories/071009165450.8qtdgh4p.html

Foreign guards kill two women in Baghdad

BAGHDAD (AFP) - Foreign security guards killed two women on Tuesday,
opening fire on their car in the centre of the Iraqi capital and then
speeding off "like gangsters," witnesses and Iraqi security officials
said.

The shooting in Karrada came two days after Iraq vowed to punish US
security firm Blackwater after a probe found that its guards were not
provoked when they opened "deliberate" fire in Baghdad three weeks ago,
killing 17 Iraqis.

Shopkeeper Ammar Fallah, a witness to the Tuesday's shooting, told AFP
the guards, who were escorting a civilian convoy through the streets,
signalled for a woman driving a white Oldsmobile car to pull over as
they passed.

"When she failed to do so they opened fire, killing her and the woman
next to her," he said. "There were two children in the back seat but
they were not harmed. The women were both shot in the head."

Iraqi officials confirmed the incident, which occurred at the Masbar
intersection in Karrada, a commercial and residential district which is
regarded as one of the most secure in Baghdad.

"A security convoy of four-wheel drive vehicles opened fire on a white
car at 2.30 pm (1130 GMT) killing two women," an interior ministry
official said.

Another witness, Sattar Jabar, told AFP that private car had moved too
close to the convoy.

"It tried to avoid the convoy of four white SUVs of the foreigners but
it came close to the last vehicle, which then opened fire immediately."

Jabar confirmed that two women were killed but said a third woman in
the back seat had been wounded in the shoulder. One of the children had
been struck by flying glass.

An AFP reporter counted 40 bullet holes in the bloodspattered car,
which was later towed to the nearby Masbar police station.

A policemen who heard the shots and came running to the scene said that
after the shooting the security guards "rode away like gangsters."

It was not clear which security company was involved in Tuesday's
shooting. Witnesses said the vehicles sped off in the direction of a
base of Dubai-based Unity Resources Group (URG), staffed mainly by
Australian security guards.

URG officials in Baghdad referred AFP to a company spokesman in Dubai,
who was not reachable.

Blackwater was not involved, according to US embassy spokeswoman
Mirembe Nantongo.

"There was no US embassy connection," she told AFP.

The Iraqi government said on Monday it was determined to rein in
private security contractors following the Blackwater shooting.

"We have set strict mechanisms to control the behaviour of the security
companies and their conduct in the streets," interior ministry
spokesman Abdul Karim Khalaf said.

The role of private security companies operating in Iraq has been under
the scanner since September 16, when Blackwater USA guards escorting a
convoy of US diplomats opened fire in Baghdad's Nisoor square.

An Iraqi government probe of the incident, which it said killed 17
civilians, found that the guards were not provoked and accused them of
a "deliberate" crime.

"Employees of the company violated the rules governing use of force by
security companies. They have committed a deliberate crime and should
be punished under the law."

The Iraqi government would now take "judicial measures to punish the
company," the statement said.

Blackwater, one of the biggest security firms working in Iraq with
around 1,000 staff, is employed to protect US government personnel in
the country. It maintains its men were legitimately responding to an
ambush while escorting a US State Department convoy.

Iraqi and US officials have set up a joint commission to investigate
the activities of private security companies.