An American was found dead in Baghdad’s fortified Green Zone, the US military said on Saturday, the apparent victim of an unprecedented slaying that occurred at a time when blast walls are coming down and Iraqi forces are assuming greater control.
Another American, believed to be a civilian contractor, was killed on Friday night when a rocket struck the Green Zone near the US embassy, the military said. It was believed to be the first fatal rocket attack there this year.
Those deaths have raised concerns about security before the June 30 deadline for all US combat troops to pull out of Baghdad and other cities. At least 66 people were killed nationwide in a two-day string of bombings this week.
PHOTO: AP
Iraq assumed control of the Green Zone zone on Jan. 1 under a US-Iraqi agreement, taking primary responsibility from US forces for searching vehicles and checking papers at entry checkpoints.
The Iraqis have begun removing some of the protective blast falls around the Green Zone — part of a campaign to restore a sense of normalcy as violence in the city has waned.
The US military gave few details of the slaying, saying only that an American was found dead on Friday in his car and that Army criminal investigators were handling the case. No further details were released.
An Iraqi security official said the victim had been stabbed in his chest and his throat slit. He said the body was found lying near a water tank by drivers who had gone there to fill water delivery trucks on Friday morning.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not supposed to release information.
The victim was identified by his brother as Jim Kitterman, 60, of Houston, Texas, who ran a small construction company based in the Green Zone and had worked in Iraq for about six years.
Although Americans and others have been killed in rocket or mortar attacks in the Green Zone, Kitterman was believed to be the first American assassinated there since the protected area was established after the city fell to US forces in April 2003.
The victim’s brother, Cliff Kitterman, said US authorities notified him about his brother’s death but he declined to recount what he had been told.
The Washington Post quoted a US official familiar with the investigation as saying the victim had been bound, blindfolded and stabbed multiple times. The newspaper did not identify the official by name because he was not authorized to release the information, the paper.
The 10km² area in the heart of Baghdad includes US and other embassies, the Iraqi parliament and the prime minister’s office. It has been long considered the safest area of the city.
Nevertheless, two suicide bombers struck a cafe and a nearby souvenir shop in October 2004, killing five people.
In April 2007 a suicide attacker detonated an explosives vest inside the Iraqi parliament cafeteria in the Green Zone, killing a Sunni lawmaker and wounding 22 other people.
In 2005, Ronald Schulz of Alaska was believed to have been kidnapped from the Green Zone where he was working as an electrician. His body and that of a woman believed to be his Iraqi fiancee were found by the US military in a grave in September last year.
The Islamic Army in Iraq claimed in December 2005 that it had killed the pair.
Also on Saturday, the US military said a US soldier died on Friday in a noncombat incident in Baghdad province.
A military statement said the incident was under investigation.
No further details were provided. The name of the soldier has not been released pending notification of next of kin.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
JOINT EFFORTS: The three countries have been strengthening an alliance and pressing efforts to bolster deterrence against Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China Sea The US, Japan and the Philippines on Friday staged joint naval drills to boost crisis readiness off a disputed South China Sea shoal as a Chinese military ship kept watch from a distance. The Chinese frigate attempted to get closer to the waters, where the warships and aircraft from the three allied countries were undertaking maneuvers off the Scarborough Shoal — also known as Huangyan Island (黃岩島) and claimed by Taiwan and China — in an unsettling moment but it was warned by a Philippine frigate by radio and kept away. “There was a time when they attempted to maneuver
RSS