Private security guard hired to protect U.S. convoys kills Iraqi taxi driver

BAGHDAD -- A private security guard fatally shot an Iraqi taxi driver, Iraqi officials said Monday, in the latest incident involving what Iraqis believe are unprovoked killings by contractors hired to protect Americans.

A spokesman for DynCorps International, a Falls Church, Va.-based company, said one of its security teams opened fire Saturday to disable a vehicle in Baghdad after it approached a convoy in a threatening manner.

"Our team had reported that they believed no one was injured. So although there were conflicting reports, we are trying to determine if the incidents are one and the same," said Gregory Lagana, DynCorp's senior vice president for communications.

Lagana said the standard procedure in such cases is to fire a single shot into the engine block to disable the vehicle. "There may have been more than one shot taken, but I don't think it was several," he said.

DynCorp International is among three firms -- along with Blackwater Worldwide and Triple Canopy -- under contract to protect American diplomats and other officials in Iraq.

Iraqi officials said the shooting took place Saturday at 12:45 p.m. across from a children's playground in Baghdad's Atafiyah neighborhood, when a taxi driver pulled up close to a convoy of seven U.S. vehicles driving through the area.

Security personnel signaled for the taxi to pull away, and then one of the guards opened fire on the car, they said.

The driver was shot in the chest and head, but was still alive when local shopkeepers and police rushed to help him, witnesses and police said. He died in a police car on the way to the hospital, said Ahmed Adel, a barber who watched the events unfold outside his shop.

"The convoy stopped at an intersection where there was little traffic jam. ... Suddenly, guards from the last SUV opened fire on the taxi while it was totally motionless and no threat whatsoever to the convoy," Adel said. "We rushed to the car and helped the police pull him out."

He added that the taxi's gearshift was in neutral when they pulled the driver out, suggesting that his car was not moving when he was shot.

-- The Associated Press