IRAQ:Private security firms in Iraq were under fresh scrutiny last night after two women died in a hail of bullets, apparently because their car had got too close to a security convoy in central Baghdad.
The identity of the guards remains unknown, but an Iraqi government spokesman said last night that a US security company was involved. Ali al-Dabbagh said: "preliminary reports indicate that an American security company has opened fire on two women and they were killed."
The deaths came just hours after Iraq's government demanded that the US security company Blackwater pay $136 million in compensation to the families of civilians killed in a shooting in Baghdad last month.
Seventeen people were shot and at least 20 injured when Blackwater guards protecting a US diplomatic convoy opened fire. Prime minister Nuri al-Maliki's government has urged the US to sever its relations with the company within six months.
The North Carolina-based company did not appear to be involved in the latest fatal shooting, Mr al-Dabbagh said. "I don't think it's Blackwater. There are many security companies working in Iraq and some of them are not even registered," he said. A Blackwater spokeswoman denied any involvement.
Police at the scene said they had collected 19 shell casings used by Nato forces and by Iraqi security agencies which have recently received new US weapons. In a scene that has become depressingly familiar to Baghdad residents, the women were shot after they drove too close to a convoy of three unmarked four-wheel-drives close to the former German embassy.
One witness said the guards in the convoy, who were reported to be masked, had fired a warning shot and a smoke bomb in the direction of the women's car. He said the woman driving appeared to panic and failed to stop.
A police spokesman said their car had then been hit with at least 16 bullets. The convoy then sped off leaving behind the blood-stained vehicle. Iraqi police later collected the bodies and towed the car to a local police station.
The women were described as Iraqi Christians. Marou Awanis (48) was named as the driver. Relatives said she had been using her car as a taxi to ferry government employees to work to raise money to support her daughters.
Two children reported to be travelling in the back seat escaped unharmed, police said.
An interior ministry spokesman said the government was committed to passing legislation regulating the activities of the private security sector.
A senior Iraqi policeman said: "why is it that when US soldiers commit crimes they go on trial, but when these thugs shoot innocent people they get away with it? It is a frustration and a humiliation for us."
Meanwhile, two suicide car bombs killed 22 people in northern Iraq in attacks targeting a police chief and a tribal leader working with U.S. forces, part of an upsurge in violence that killed 56 across the country.