BAGHDAD, 9 October 2007 — Iraq said yesterday it was determined to rein in private security contractors, a day after accusing guards from the US company Blackwater of deliberately gunning down civilians in a Baghdad square. An Iraqi government report has said 17 people died in the unprovoked shooting and 22 were wounded.
“We have set strict mechanisms to control the behavior of the security companies and their conduct in the streets,” Interior Ministry spokesman Abdul Karim Khalaf told a news conference in Baghdad.
Iraq’s government on Sunday vowed to punish US-based Blackwater after an inquiry found that its guards were not provoked when they opened fire on civilians on Sept. 16 in Baghdad in Nisoor Square. “The investigation committee appointed by Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki ... has finished its inquiry and has found that there was no evidence that the convoy of Blackwater came under fire directly or indirectly,” a government statement said.
“It was not touched even by a stone,” it added. “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.
The US Embassy was tight-lipped on whether those involved in the killings would be handed over for prosecution in a case that has thrown the spotlight on the murky world of private security operators in Iraq. “This and other matters will be discussed by the joint commission as they proceed with their work, (so it is) best not to prejudge the outcome of their discussions at this point,” embassy spokeswoman Mirembe Nantongo told AFP, referring to a joint Iraq-US inquiry into the shootings.
Khalaf said a new law to control the operations of private security companies in Iraq had already been drafted and would go before Parliament imminently. “The bill is being studied by the Shoura (consultative council) and will soon be presented to Parliament for ratification,” Khalaf said.
Car and truck bombs killed at least 24 people in Baghdad and north of the capital, including a blast near the Polish Embassy, five days after an assassination attempt in the same area severely wounded the Polish ambassador.
The deadliest bombing occurred in Dijlah, a village near Samarra in the Sunni heartland, 95 kilometers north of Baghdad when an attacker drove his explosives-laden truck into a police station, killing at least 13 people.
Nobody claimed responsibility for the attacks but they bore the hallmarks of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, which has promised an offensive to coincide with the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.
Separately, US troops killed five and detained three suspected rogue Shiite militants early yesterday in eastern Baghdad after they came under attack during an operation targeting a cell involved in kidnappings and attacks with armor-piercing roadside bombs known as explosively formed penetrators, or EFPs, the military said. Iraqi police said the raid occurred in Sadr City.
The US military also said yesterday that American soldiers detained 17 suspected insurgents during a combat operation two days ago in Mahmoudiya, south of Baghdad. The suspects were said to be members of a mortar cell wanted for launching attacks into Baghdad.
The bombing in Dijlah came hours after a suicide car bomber struck a police checkpoint in Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit, 130 kilometers north of Baghdad, killing three officers and one civilian, and wounding 10 other people. A parked car bomb also exploded at a market near Baghdad University’s technology department, killing five civilians and wounding 15.
Police also said a car bomb near the Polish Embassy in the central Karradah district killed two Iraqis and wounded five. Polish Ambassador Gen. Edward Pietrzyk, was wounded in an ambush on Oct. 3 that also killed a Polish security guard and two Iraqis.
