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Iraq to review security firms after deadly shootout
By Sabah Jerges
AFP
BAGHDAD
Petroleumworld.com 09 19 07
Iraq declared on Tuesday it will review the operations of all security firms working in the country following a deadly shootout involving private US contractor Blackwater.
A top judge also said Blackwater could face trial over Sunday's incident in Baghdad, which left 10 people dead and was branded a criminal act by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.
Washington has sought to cool tensions over the shooting, with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice calling Maliki to express her regrets over the civilian deaths and pledging a full investigation.
"The cabinet in a meeting decided to review the operations of foreign and local security companies in Iraq," government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said in a statement.
The review will determine whether these companies operate in "compliance with Iraqi laws," he said.
Dabbagh said the cabinet also backed the interior ministry's decision on Monday to cancel Blackwater's operating licence.
The death toll from the shooting in the Al-Yarmukh district, which involved Blackwater guards escorting a US diplomatic convoy, has risen to nine civilians and one policeman, according to a medic at the local hospital.
US and Iraqi sources said the shooting erupted after a bomb exploded near a US diplomatic convoy, but a US government incident report said armed insurgents fired on the convoy and Blackwater guards responded.
"Blackwater's independent contractors acted lawfully and appropriately in response to a hostile attack in Baghdad on Sunday," said a statement from the North Carolina company, reported by CNN on its website.
"Blackwater regrets any loss of life, but this convoy was violently attacked by armed insurgents, not civilians, and our people did their job to defend human life."
Judge Abdul Sattar Ghafour Bairaqdar, from Iraq's highest court, the Supreme Judiciary Council, said Blackwater could face trial.
"This company is subject to Iraqi law and the crime committed was on Iraqi territory and the Iraqi judiciary is responsible for tackling the case," he said.
The judge said the case against Blackwater -- which is one of the biggest private security firms operating inside Iraq with about 1,000 staff -- could be filed either by relatives of the victims or by the government.
Despite the interior ministry order, a US embassy official said on Tuesday that Blackwater had not been expelled.
"Blackwater is still here. The US authorities are holding discussions with the Iraqi counterparts over the issue," the official told AFP.
The shootout came as the spotlight focused on the future strategy of the United States in Iraq, where top commanders are forecasting a troop drawdown in the coming months.
Rice called Maliki on Monday to "express her regret over the death of innocent civilians that occurred during the attack on an embassy convoy," State Department spokesman Tom Casey said.
But Maliki's office said Rice went further and had "apologised personally," as well as assuring him that a detailed investigation would be carried out.
The interior ministry's director of operations, Major General Abdel Karim Khalaf, said its own investigation into the incident will be completed in a day or two.
The White House kept at arm's length from the boiling dispute.
"I would just say, on behalf of the administration, that any loss of innocent life is deeply regretted," Dana Perino, US President George W. Bush's chief spokeswoman, said in Washington.
Perino referred questions about Blackwater contractors, who are hired to protect US officials in Iraq including Ambassador Ryan Crocker, to the US State Department and declined to say what the company's legal status is in Iraq.
Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said US Defence Secretary Robert Gates is examining the US military's use of private security contractors in Iraq.
Gates wants to know "the extent to which we rely on armed security contractors -- what they do for us, and what are their rules of engagement, what are the constraints under which they operate," Morrell said.Meanwhile 13 people were killed in bomb attacks in Baghdad, including seven who died when a car bomb and a mortar targeted a morgue filled with people searching for missing relatives, security officials said.
The US military said insurgents killed three American soldiers and wounded another three when they triggered an explosion in Diyala province, northeast of Baghdad on Tuesday. Another was killed in an accident in Niniveh province.
Insurgents also sabotaged a crude oil pipeline near the northern refinery town of Baiji, spilling huge quantities of oil into the Tigris River, a security official said.
And the new chief of Sunni Arab tribes allied to US forces in the restive province of Anbar vowed on Tuesday to crush Al-Qaeda, repeating that the tribes would avenge his brother's killing.
" The whole of Anbar must take revenge for the sheikh's killing ... You will get the news within the year; you will not hear about something called Al-Qaeda" after that, Sheikh Ahmed Abu Reesha told Al-Arabiya news channel.
Sheikh Ahmed succeeded his brother, Abdul Sattar Abu Reesha, as head of the Anbar Awakening Conference, a coalition of 42 Sunni tribes working with US troops to fight Al-Qaeda in the western province.
Abdul Sattar was killed by a bomb outside the provincial capital of Ramadi last Thursday.
His assassination was claimed by the so-called Islamic State of Iraq, which is affiliated to Al-Qaeda.
AFP 18 1920 GMT 09 07
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