Contractors fire on vehicle in Iraq (Erinys Iraq Ltd-Guarding Army Corp of Engineers)

Source: Seattle Post-Intelligencer

A British private security team protecting members of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers opened fire on a speeding vehicle after issuing warning shots Thursday, wounding four Iraqi civilians in the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, the U.S. military said.

The incident comes on the heels of two other shooting incidents involving private security contractors in Iraq. Blackwater USA guards were involved in a shooting in Baghdad last month that left 17 civilians dead, and contractors working for an Australian-owned firm shot and killed two women in a separate incident in the capital earlier this month.

Thursday's shooting happened when a vehicle approached the security guards working for Erinys Iraq Ltd., a British security company, at high speeds about 15 miles east of the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk, the U.S. military said.

The guards "initiated escalating warning procedures under the rules for the use of force," injuring one of the occupants in the vehicle, the Army Corps of Engineers said. It said the incident was under investigation.



Read more: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1107AP_Iraq_Security_Contractors.html

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An Iraqi badly injured man rests in a hospital after receiving medical treatments in Kirkuk, 290 kilometers (180 miles) north of Baghdad, Iraq, on Thursday, Oct. 18, 2007. The injured man is one of three casualties, after American troops opened fire on a civilian car north of Baghdad on the way from Kirkuk to Sulaimaniyah , wounding 3 civilians two of them in critical condition, police said.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20071019/wl_mideast_afp/iraqunrestguards_071019143323

BAGHDAD (AFP) - The US military said on Friday it had launched an investigation into the latest shooting to involve private security firms protecting convoys in war-torn Iraq.
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Guards from British firm Erinys working for the US Army Corps of Engineers fired on a taxi near the northern city of Kirkuk on Thursday, wounding three civilians, including a woman journalist, according to police.

A spokeswoman for the engineers, Kimberly Mielcarek, confirmed to AFP that the corps had now appointed an investigator to look into the shooting, the third such incident in little over a month.

US firm Blackwater killed as many as 17 civilians in a shooting on September 16 and employees of an Australian-run company shot dead two women on October 9. Several investigations were launched after the Blackwater shooting when guards opened fire in a crowded Baghdad square while escorting a US State Department convoy.

A police officer who witnessed Thursday's latest incident told AFP that he had seen three cars from the Erinys convoy pass a taxi before one of the guards opened fire.