AFP : Iraq orders halt to US firm's operations after shootout

Iraq orders halt to US firm's operations after shootout

September 17, 2007

BAGHDAD (AFP) — Iraq on Monday ordered the cancellation of US security firm Blackwater's operating licence after it was involved in a shootout in Baghdad that killed eight people and wounded 13, a senior official told AFP.

Blackwater guards, who provide personal security for US civilian officials working in Iraq, also faced a US investigation into the gun battle as differing accounts began to emerge over the circumstances of the shooting.

US and Iraqi sources in Baghdad said the shooting erupted after a bomb exploded near a US diplomatic convoy in Baghdad's Al-Yarmukh neighbourhood Sunday, but a US government incident report said armed insurgents fired on the convoy and Blackwater guards responded.

"The interior minister (Jawad al-Bolani) has issued an order to cancel Blackwater's licence and the company is prohibited from operating anywhere in Iraq," interior ministry director of operations Major General Abdel Karim Khalaf said.

"We have opened a criminal investigation against the group who committed the crime."

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki also condemned what he called the "criminal" response of the contractors guarding the convoy, while US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice attempted to smooth tempers with a diplomatic phone call.

"The secretary called Prime Minister Maliki this afternoon to express her regret over the death of innocent civilians that occurred during the attack on an embassy convoy," spokesman Tom Casey said.

"She told the prime minister that we were investigating this incident and wanted to gain a full understanding of what happened," and they "agreed on the importance of working closely together ... on a transparent investigation."

According to a US government incident report, the "skirmish occurred at 12:08 pm on Sunday when 'the motorcade was engaged with small arms fire from several locations' as it moved through a neighborhood of west Baghdad," TIME magazine reported.

"The team returned fire to several identified targets," TIME quoted the report as saying.

"Some eyewitnesses said the fighting began after an explosion detonated near the US convoy, but the incident report does not reflect that," the magazine said.

However, a US embassy spokeswoman in Baghdad, Mirembe Nantongo, told AFP earlier that the shooting happened when the private security guards "reacted to a car bomb."

Embassy information officer W. Johann Schmonsees said "the car bomb was in proximity to where State Department personnel were meeting. This is the reason Blackwater responded to that."

A Blackwater official told TIME that "contrary to some reports from Iraq, 'the convoy was violently attacked by armed insurgents, not civilians, and our people did their job, they fired back to defend human life.'"

Iraqi security officials said most of the dead and wounded were bystanders.

One of them, lawyer Hassan Jabar Salman, was hit by five bullets while trying to flee the scene in his car, and he told AFP in Baghdad's Al-Yarmukh Hospital where he was being treated that he heard an explosion near Al-Nissur Square and saw the convoy two cars ahead of him.

"The foreigners in the convoy started shouting and signalling us to go back. I turned around and must have driven 100 feet (30 metres) when they started shooting.

"There were eight of them in four utility vehicles and all shooting with heavy machine guns," he said as he lay wrapped in bloodied bandages on the hospital bed.

"My car was hit with 12 bullets, of which four hit me in the back and one in the arm."

US embassy officials were unable to confirm the cancellation of Blackwater's licence, and Schmonsees told reporters that Blackwater had not "been expelled from the country yet."

"We are continuing to discuss with the Iraqi government," he said.

Tens of thousands of American and foreign troops deployed in Iraq have immunity from legal prosecution, but foreign private security contractors do not.

Blackwater, set up by a former US Navy SEAL, made headlines when four of its contractors were killed and their bodies were hanged from a bridge in the then insurgent bastion of Fallujah west of Baghdad in 2004.

The company employs nearly 1,000 people in Iraq and operates a fleet of helicopters offering security to US embassy officials and other Americans and escorts for convoys on the country's dangerous roads.

There have been several other similar incidents in Baghdad involving private security contractors, who are often accused of opening fire randomly and speeding through the crowded streets to avoid insurgent attacks.