[NYTr] Australian MercsWho Sbot Iraqi Women Have Killed Before

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

sent by Dave Muller (southnews)

Al Jazeera - Oct 10, 2007
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/F41A02D6-2956-4CD0-8822-712DF2D73C7F.htm

Iraqi women killed by security firm           

Foreign security guards have killed two Iraqi women by opening fire on 
their car in the capital, Baghdad.
 
Unity Resources Group, an Australian-owned security firm based in
Dubai, said one of its teams was involved in the shooting on Tuesday
and "deeply regret" the incident.
 
An Iraqi government spokesman said an investigation was under way.
    
The shooting came the same day as Iraq's government demanded that a US 
security company, Blackwater, pay $8m each to families of 17 people 
killed in a shooting in September. An Iraqi investigation into that 
incident found that the guards were unprovoked when they opened 
"deliberate" fire.
    
Tuesday's shooting occurred near Unity offices in central Baghdad's 
Karradah district.
 
Warnings
 
Michael Priddin, Unity's chief operating officer, issued a statement 
saying: "We deeply regret this incident and will continue to pass on 
further information when the facts have been verified and the necessary 
people and authorities notified."
 
The company further said: "The first information that we have is that 
our security team was approached at speed by a vehicle which failed to 
stop despite an escalation of warnings which included hand signals and
a signal flare.
 
"Finally shots were fired at the vehicle and it stopped."
 
Iraqi police said guards threw a smoke bomb in an apparent bid to warn 
the car against coming forward.
 
Several witnesses said the car had moved too close to the convoy.

Ammar Fallah, a shopkeeper and witness to the shooting, said that 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."
 
Another witness, Sattar Jabar, said the car had "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 and one of the children 
had been struck by flying glass.
 
Reining in 'gangsters'
 
A policeman who heard the shots and came running to the scene said that 
after the shooting the security guards "rode away like gangsters".
 
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," Abdul Karim Khalaf, an 
interior ministry spokesman, said.
 
The role of private security companies operating in Iraq has been under 
investigation since September 16, when Blackwater 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 added.
 
Blackwater, one of the biggest security firms working in Iraq with 
around 1,000 employees, 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

Source: Agencies

                            ***

Sydney Morning Herald, Australia - Oct 10, 2007
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/guards-killed-before/2007/10/10/1191695960053.html


Aussie security firm killed before in Iraq

by Edmund Tadros

Employees of an Australian security company involved in a fatal
shooting of two women in Iraq yesterday have been previously
investigated over the shooting death of an Iraqi-born Australian.

The Australian head of the Unity Resources Group, Michael Priddin, 
confirmed the company had been involved in Tuesday's shooting incident.

Initial accounts of the shooting - from company statements, witnesses 
and others - suggested the guards opened fire as a car failed to heed 
warnings to stop and drifted closer to the convoy near a Unity facility 
in central Baghdad's Karrada district.

Two Iraqi Christian women - including one who used the car, a white 
sedan, as an unofficial taxi to raise money for her family - died in
the shooting.

"We deeply regret this incident and we will continue to pass on further 
information when the facts have been verified and the necessary people 
and authorities have been notified," Mr Priddin, whose company is
mainly staffed by Australian guards, told ABC Radio this morning.

Security organisations in Iraq are under intense scrutiny after guards 
from the US security firm Blackwater allegedly opened fire without 
provocation in Baghdad last month and killed 17 people while escorting
a convoy of US diplomats.

In March last year an employee of Unity Resources Group opened fire and 
killed Iraqi-born Australian Kays Juma.

Professor Juma, 72, who held a resident's visa in Australia, had been 
teaching agricultural subjects at a Baghdad university.

At the time Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer said it appeared 
that when the vehicle Professor Juma was in did not stop at a 
checkpoint, a security officer opened fire.

An internal Unity Resources Group investigation cleared its staff 
members of wrongdoing. The Coalition Provincial Authority said that it 
accepted those findings.

Mr Priddin said the exact circumstances of Tuesday's incident were
still to be determined and the company was working with Iraqi
authorities to do so.

"In essence, what we know is that one of our security teams was
involved in a shooting incident on Tuesday at approximately 1.40 in the
afternoon in the Karrada area of Baghdad," he said.

"One of our security teams which was mobile was approached at speed by
a vehicle which had failed to stop despite an escalation of warnings
which included hand signals and signal flares. Finally shots were fired
at the vehicle and the vehicle itself stopped."

Several witnesses said the convoy had headed in the direction of the
URG base - a hotel complex sealed off behind high concrete walls and
sand bags.

- with Reuters, AFP, AAP,