2 Iraqi Women Killed by Convoy Guards

A child stands next to remains after a parked car by an intersection in the eastern neighborhood of Binok, Baghdad, Iraq, exploded in the early afternoon, killing five and wounding four people, police said Tuesday Oct. 9 2007. Three parked car bombs struck the Iraqi capital, killing at least 15 people and wounding 45 others. (AP Photo / Hadi Mizban)

9 October 2007

By SINAN SALAHEDDIN

BAGHDAD-Guards in a security convoy opened fire on a car at an intersection in central Baghdad on Tuesday, killing two Iraqi Christian women, police said.

The State Department said the convoy was not protecting U.S. diplomats, but an embassy spokeswoman said an American nongovernmental organization may have been involved.

Across Iraq, violence claimed the lives of at least 44 people, including 19 who died in coordinated suicide car bombings in the north that targeted a local police chief and a Sunni sheik.

Police and witnesses could not immediately give more details about the gunmen in Baghdad except to say they were in a convoy of four SUVs commonly used by private security companies and the Iraqi Ministry of Interior.

The womens' deaths threatened to increase calls for limits on the private security firms, which have come under intense scrutiny since the Sept. 16 shooting deaths of as many as 17 Iraqi civilians allegedly by guards with Blackwater USA, the largest firm protecting U.S. diplomats in Iraq. In that case, the American security company said its employees were acting in self-defense.

Blackwater spokeswoman Anne Tyrrell denied the Moyock, N.C.-based company had any involvement in Tuesday's deaths.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said only that the incident did not involve U.S. diplomats. "It was not an American convoy," he said.

"There may be a contractual relationship with a U.S. NGO," U.S. Embassy spokeswoman Mirembe Nantongo said. "We're working on clarifying that."

The women were in a white car that drove into the Masbah intersection in the central Karradah district as the convoy of three white and one gray SUVs was stopped about 100 yards away, according to a policeman who witnessed the shooting from a nearby checkpoint.

The men in the SUVs threw a smoke bomb in an apparent bid to warn the car against coming forward, said Riyadh Majid, the policeman. The woman driving the car tried to stop, but was killed along with the passenger when two of the guards in the convoy opened fire, Majid said.

The pavement where the attack occurred was stained with blood and covered with shattered glass from the car windows. He said the convoy then raced away and Iraqi police came to collect the bodies and tow the car to the local police station.

Security officials in Baghdad, who spoke anonymously because of the sensitivity of the topic, said the description of the convoy vehicles matched those used by Iraq's Interior Ministry, although that could not immediately be confirmed.

Another policeman, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he feared retribution, said the guards were masked and wearing khaki uniforms. He said one of them left the vehicle and started to shoot at the car while another opened fire from the open back door of a separate SUV.

The victims were identified by relatives and police as Marou Awanis, born in 1959, as Geneva Jalal, born in 1977.

"These are innocent people killed by people who have no heart or consciousness. The Iraqi people have no value to them," said a man who was part of a group of relatives gathered with a Christian priest at the local police station.

The man said Awanis had three daughters. "Who will now raise the girls? They are now motherless," he said.

Awanis' sister-in-law, Anahet Bougous, said the woman was using her car to taxi government employees to work to help raise money for her three daughters.

"May God take revenge on those killers," Bougous said, crying outside the police station. "Now, who is going to raise them?"

Further Reading:

Another Security Firm in Baghdad Shooting