NZ engineer shot in Iraq car ambush

By BRIDGET CARTER

A New Zealand engineer has been gunned down in Iraq.

A senior Iraqi security officer said John Robert Taylor, 48, and two colleagues from a reconstruction firm were shot after five gunmen opened fire on their car as they were leaving their home in oil-rich Kirkuk, 250km north of Baghdad.

A Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade spokesman said last night that he understood a New Zealander had died. However, the ministry would not confirm the identity of the civilian until next of kin had been told.

Agence France-Presse quoted police chief General Turhan Yussef as saying an Iraqi driver and a South African were killed immediately and the New Zealander was declared dead on arrival at hospital.

But Major General Anwar Mohammed Amin, head of Iraqi security forces in the city, told the Herald last night that Mr Taylor was seriously ill in hospital.

The incident occurred about 3.30pm NZT yesterday.

General Amin said Mr Taylor worked for a construction company and had come from Kuwait.

He was with the South African man and their Iraqi driver when they were confronted by the gunmen.

"I think they were terrorists," he said.

"They want to kill everybody walking in Iraq."

Last night, Prime Minister Helen Clark said the Government understood that a civilian contractor had been killed in an ambush.

"We've been saying for quite a long time now that Iraq is a very, very dangerous place to be, and sadly this kind of news bears that out," she said.

The Prime Minister said the Government did not have a lot of information on the incident or the identity of the New Zealander.


"We understand that this New Zealander wasn't working with other New Zealanders at the point that he was killed," Helen Clark said.

She said New Zealand had issued "the strongest type of travel warning that we ever issue" about Iraq.

"We say, 'Don't go there unless you have essential business'. We can't be clearer than that."

Many people were tempted by the large amounts of money being offered for jobs in wartorn Iraq, but they should weigh up the fact that "they may never see their families again".

"It is dangerous enough for military engineers. As we know, when there is trouble they don't leave the base. For civilian contractors, it is particularly dangerous."

About 60 Defence Force personnel are doing reconstruction work in the Basra area.

During the weekend, New Zealand troops in Basra were confined to barracks after fresh fighting broke out between rebel Iraqi cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and British forces.

Last month, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade said it knew of a "handful" of New Zealanders in Iraq, but it did not claim to have comprehensive knowledge of every Kiwi who was there.

Bodyguards can earn $600-plus a day in Iraq.

It was revealed this week that three police officers quit their jobs to do security work in Iraq after being told they could not take up contracts there while on leave.

Kirkuk, an ethnically diverse city with around a third of Iraq's oil wells, has been racked by violence this year and security concerns are mounting among expatriate workers.

Its deputy governor, Ismail Hadidi, said there was most probably a "network planning assassinations of foreigners and local officials".

Last week, gunmen assassinated the head of the local Agriculture Department in a drive-by shooting.

Insurgents have been waging a violent campaign of bombings and shootings against American-led troops, Iraqi police, security forces and civilians since former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was toppled in April last year.

The Associated Press has reported that about 30 per cent of non-Iraqis working on American-financed reconstruction projects have left Iraq in the past month because of a lack of security.

- Additional reporting, NZPA

Herald Feature: Iraq