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2 IRAQI WOMEN KILLED IN SHOOTING BY SECURITY CONVOY

Joao Silva for The New York Times

New York Times

Oct 10 2007

An Iraqi boy peered Tuesday inside a car that was towed to a Baghdad

police station after two women inside were killed.

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By ANDREW E. KRAMER and JAMES GLANZ Published: October 10, 2007

BAGHDAD, Oct. 9 - Two women died here on Tuesday when their white

Oldsmobile was riddled by automatic gunfire from guards for a private

security company, just weeks after a shooting by another company

strained relations between the United States and Iraq.

An Armenian priest viewed the damaged Oldsmobile Tuesday near a police

station in Baghdad.

The guards involved in the Tuesday shooting were working for an

Australian-run security company. But the people they were assigned

to protect work under the same United States government agency whose

security guards sprayed bullets across a crowded Baghdad square on

Sept. 16, an episode that caused an uproar among Iraqi officials and

is still being investigated by the United States.

In the Tuesday shooting, as many as 40 bullets struck the car, killing

the driver and the woman in the front seat on the passenger side. A

woman and a boy in the back seat survived, according to witnesses and

local police officials in the Karada neighborhood, where the shooting

took place on a boulevard lined with appliance stores, tea shops and

money changers.

American government officials said the guards had been hired to

protect financial and policy experts working for an organization under

contract with the United States Agency for International Development,

a quasi-independent State Department agency that does extensive aid

work in Iraq.

The organization, RTI International, is in Iraq to carry out what

is ultimately a State Department effort to improve local government

and democratic institutions. But a Bush administration official said

the State Department bore no responsibility for overseeing RTI's

security operations.

"A.I.D. does not direct the security arrangements of its contractors,"

the official said. "These groups are contractually responsible for

the safety and security of their employees. That responsibility falls

entirely on the contractor."

A priest and relatives near the scene said that all of the people in

the car were Armenian Christians, who make up a small minority group in

Iraq. The Oldsmobile was shot once in the radiator, witnesses said,

in front of a plumbing supply store as it approached a convoy of

white sport utility vehicles 50 yards away.

As the car kept rolling, a barrage of gunfire suddenly tore through

its hood, roof and windshield, as well as the passenger side.

The guards who were in the convoy work for Unity Resources Group,

an Australian-run company that has its headquarters in Dubai and is

registered in Singapore, according to a statement by the company.

Unity Resources was hired by RTI to provide security in Iraq.

In its statement, Unity Resources said that according to its initial

information, the car had approached the convoy "at speed" and failed

to stop in response to hand signals and a warning flare.

"Finally shots were fired at the vehicle and it stopped," the

company said.

The episode's connection with the United States Agency for

International Development is one of several parallels to the Sept. 16

shootings, in which the Iraqi government says 17 Iraqis died and 27

were wounded.

The Sept. 16 episode began when a convoy operated by Blackwater USA,

an American private security company hired to protect the aid agency's

officials, entered Nisour Square in central Baghdad and fired several

bullets toward a car the guards apparently considered a threat.

In the Tuesday shooting, like the one on Sept. 16, the car drifted

forward after the initial burst, prompting guards to unleash a barrage

of gunfire. And there were no government officials or policy experts

in either of the convoys: the Nisour Square convoy was controlling

traffic as part of a larger operation, and the convoy in Karada was

on a routine movement that involved only security guards, according

to American officials.

Although the United States Embassy in Baghdad has said almost nothing

about the Nisour Square episode while an American investigation grinds

on, the Iraqi government has said its own investigation concluded

that the shootings were an act of "deliberate murder" and called on

the Blackwater guards to be prosecuted.

Ali Jafar, a traffic policeman posted near the Karada shooting,

said he thought the similarities between the cases were undeniable.

"They are killing the people just like what happened in Nisour Square,"

Mr. Jafar said. "They are butchering the Iraqis."

The new shootings happened at an extremely difficult time for the State

Department, which relies heavily on Blackwater to protect its diplomats

whenever they work outside the fortified Green Zone. As a result of new

restrictions placed on Blackwater after the Nisour Square shootings,

the State Department's numerous programs for rebuilding Iraqi

government and technical institutions have been seriously hampered.

Embassy officials have vowed to continue their operations even as they

increase oversight of Blackwater operations. But Tuesday's episode

appears to show that the new oversight comes with many loopholes:

Unity Resources is not working directly for the State Department,

but for RTI International, which has been contracted by the aid agency

to provide experts on local governing.

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Joao Silva for The New York Times Two Armenian Christian women were

killed in the car.

Reach of War Go to Complete Coverage " In fact, an American Embassy

spokesman said, the State Department has no say in the operations of

security companies employed by government contractors. "Their contract

might be with A.I.D., but that doesn't shed any light on their choice

of security contractor," he said.

A spokesman for Unity Resources, Martin Simich, said Tuesday that

he was unsure whether the guards involved in the shooting had been

interviewed by American authorities.

On Tuesday, the convoy of white S.U.V.'s was stopped in the eastbound

lane of Karada Street at an intersection with an alley lined with low

concrete homes, witnesses said. A man who works at the plumbing shop,

who gave his name only as Muhammad, said the Oldsmobile was approaching

the convoy from behind.

He said he heard no warnings. "They shot from the back door," he

said. "The door opened and they fired."

Two witnesses said they heard a single shot first, which apparently

punctured the Oldsmobile's radiator, spilling coolant onto the street

about 50 yards from where the convoy was parked. As the car continued

rolling, the guards opened up with a barrage of sustained automatic

fire. The car finally came to a stop about 10 yards from the convoy

at a point that, three hours later, was marked by blood stains,

broken glass and tufts of brown hair.

The plumbing shop employee said the convoy moved out right away,

without checking to see what damage had been done or to offer

medical help.

The Oldsmobile was towed to a nearby police station.

The priest and relatives near the scene identified the driver as

Maruni Uhanees, 59, and the dead passenger as Jeniva Jalal, 30.

As twilight set in, family members gathered beside the car in a dirt

alley outside the police station, staring at the blood and hair on

the inside of the windshield.

A brother-in-law of the driver, Hrair Vartanian, said Ms. Uhanees

was the mother of three grown daughters. As he spoke, one daughter

arrived and looked at the blood stains, crying softly.