US and Iraqi officials on Wednesday were investigating yet another shooting of Iraqi civilians by a heavily armed security firm linked to US government-financed work in Iraq.

The bodies of Marou Awanis and Geneva Jalal, the Christian women killed in the Tuesday shooting, were taken, meanwhile, to Baghdad’s Armenian Orthodox Virgin Mary Church for funeral services.

Iraqi authorities blamed the women’s deaths on guards working for Unity Resources Group, a security company owned by Australian partners but with headquarters in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.

Unity provides security services to RTI International, a group that promotes governance projects in Iraq for the US Agency for International Development.

Both Unity and RTI acknowledged a security contract between them and both entities said RTI staffers were not present when the shooting occurred in Baghdad’s Karradah district.

A US Embassy spokeswoman said RTI was under contract by USAID but was responsible for its own security. “USAID does not direct the security arrangements of contractors,” an official said. According to the USAID Web site, RTI has about $450 million in US government contracts to work on local governance projects in Iraq. USAID is a semi-autonomous arm of the US State Department that manages American aide programs.

Michael Priddin, chief operating officer of Unity said that the firm was working with Iraqi authorities
“to work out a true picture of what happened”.

Iraqi government officials, police and witnesses said guards working for Unity fired on a white Oldsmobile as it approached their convoy Tuesday afternoon, killing the two women 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 women — including one who used the white sedan as an unofficial taxi to raise money for her family — is certain to sharpen Iraqi government demands to curb foreign security firms in Iraq.

Al-Qaeda leader killed in Algeria

Algerian security forces identified a radical Islamist militant slain over the weekend as the No 2 leader and explosives expert of al-Qaeda’s north Africa affiliate, reports said, AP reports from Algiers.

Sofiane el-Fassila, alias Hareg Zoheir, was an alleged mastermind of several recent suicide bombing attacks in Algeria that were claimed by a former insurgent group calling itself al-Qaeda in Islamic North Africa, newspaper reports said on Tuesday, citing security officials.

El-Fassila and two suspected accomplices were shot dead on Saturday near a roadblock put up by security forces in the town of Boghni in the restive Kabylie region east of Algiers, daily Liberte reported.

Security forces have been conducting sweeps in the region, and searching for el-Fassila, who had been wanted in connection with the April 11 suicide bombings targeting the prime minister’s office and a police station in an Algiers suburb. Thirty people died in those attacks.