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Guards From Private Firm Kill 2 Iraqis

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By KIM GAMEL, The Associated Press

Published: October 10, 2007

BAGHDAD - Guards working for an Australian-owned security company fired on a car as it approached their convoy Tuesday, killing two female civilians before speeding away from the latest bloodshed blamed on the deadly mix of heavily armed protection details on Baghdad's crowded streets.

The deaths of the two Iraqi Christians, including one who used the sedan as an unofficial taxi to raise money for her family, came a day after the Iraqi government handed U.S. officials a report demanding hefty payments and the ouster from Iraq of embattled Blackwater USA for a chaotic shooting last month that left at least 17 civilians dead.

'We deeply regret this incident,' said a statement from Michael Priddin, the chief operating officer of Unity Resources Group.

Four armored sport utility vehicles were about 100 yards from a main intersection in the Shiite-controlled district. As the car, a white Oldsmobile, moved into the crossroads, the Unity guards threw a smoke bomb in an apparent bid to warn the car not to come closer, said Riyadh Majid, an Iraqi police officer who saw the shooting.

Two of the Unity guards then opened fire. The woman driving the car tried to stop, but was killed along with her passenger.

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

Iraqi anger has grown against the private security companies - nearly all based in the United States, Britain and other Western countries - as symbols of the lawlessness that has ravaged their country for more than four years.

Elsewhere Tuesday, at least 57 Iraqis were found dead or killed by bombs and shootings.

Police in Beiji, an oil hub 155 miles north of Baghdad said at least 19 people were killed in two suicide bombings that badly damaged a Sunni mosque about 100 yards away from the police chief's house. Three guards at the police chief's house were among the dead.

In Baghdad, a series of four car bombs killed 16 people.

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