Three Iraqis working with the US occupation were shot dead and two others seriously wounded by gunmen in the northern city of Mosul, AFP reoprted Tuesday.
"Two Iraqis working as translators and a third employed as a computer technician with the Americans were killed Monday around 9pm in the Somar neighbourhood in southern Mosul," local police chief Hikmat Mahmud Mohammad said.
"Two others also working with the Americans were seriously wounded as they were driving to work," General Mohammad said. "The unidentified attackers, also riding in a car, opened fire with automatic weapons before fleeing," he conveyed.
Meanwhile, the UN will not risk a repeat of last year's attack on its offices in Iraq by establishing a full presence in the country unless security there is improved, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan made clear Tuesday.
In comments before the Japanese Parliament and to reporters, Annan said the world body was prepared to assist Iraqi authorities form an interim government, arrange elections and draft a constitution.
However, the UN presence will remain "light" until the war-ravaged country becomes safer for his staff, said Annan, who pulled all non-Iraqi UN workers out of the country last year after devastating suicide bombings at the UN headquarters in the capital Baghdad.
"Security must be improved. Otherwise I risk repeating the experience of 19 August," Annan told the Japan Press Club, referring to the date when a truck bomb against the UN in Baghdad killed 22, including chief envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello.
Kofi Annan said that the United Nations had discussed the need for better security with the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq. Additionally, he said smaller teams would make trips to Iraq to assist with the building of a functioning government.
"I'm not insisting that Iraq be as peaceful as Tokyo or Geneva, but there is a minimum," he said. (Albawaba.com)
© 2004 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
