UN wants security guards in Iraq to face law

The United Nations wants probes to determine whether private security contractors in Iraq have committed war crimes and for governments to ensure that the rule of law is applied, UN officials said yesterday.

The killing of 17 Iraqis in a shooting involving US security firm Blackwater last month has created tensions between Baghdad and Washington and sparked calls for tighter controls on private contractors, who are immune from prosecution in Iraq.

Ivana Vuco, the UN's senior human rights officer in Iraq, told a news conference that private security contractors were still subject to international humanitarian law.

"Investigations as to whether or not crimes against humanity, war crimes, are being committed and obviously the consequences of that is something that we will be paying attention to and advocating for," she told a news conference.

Iraq says there are more than 180 mainly US and European security companies in the country, with estimates of the number of private contractors ranging from 25,000 to 48,000.

Launching the latest UN human rights report, which covers the period April through June, officials also stressed that the crisis caused by the displacement of Iraqis was getting worse and the human rights situation in general was "very grim".

Al Qaeda in Iraq has vowed to attack Iraqi police and Sunni Arab tribal leaders working with US forces during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. There has been a spate of attacks on law enforcement officers and tribal leaders in north Iraq this week.

A car bomb in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk yesterday wounded the traffic police chief, killed at least seven and wounded 49 others, police said. Video footage showed at least five burnt-out cars after the blast near a busy market.

"I heard a loud sound and I fell on the ground," said a 50-year-old Kurdish woman. "When I stood up I saw smoke, people screaming, and people on the ground either killed or wounded, people running."

Insurgents also launched a rare attack on a sprawling US base in the capital Baghdad late on Wednesday, firing nine mortar bombs or rockets into the compound. The attack killed two soldiers and wounded 38, the US military said yesterday.

The number of casualties is the highest in months from an attack on Victory, which houses the US military's headquarters near Baghdad airport.