Four Gurkhas who were working for a British security firm in Baghdad have been killed and another 15 injured in a mortar attack on their base in the capital's heavily fortified Green Zone, company officials said yesterday. The Foreign Office confirmed that the men were at their camp when the mortars were fired on Thursday afternoon. The men worked for Global Risk Strategies, a London-based firm that employs about 1,500 security contractors of several nationalities in Iraq. Most are placed on guard duty at key sites, including the Green Zone and the main international airport in western Baghdad. A large number of the guards are Gurkhas, Nepalese soldiers retired from the military. "There was an incident yesterday [Thursday]. We lost four people and had 12 to 15 who were injured," said Tim O'Brien, a spokesman for Global. "We can't confirm what this incident actually was until we go through internal investigations."
In a website posting, the extremist Ansar al-Sunna army claimed responsibility for the attack. The same group claimed responsibility for massacring 12 Nepalese construction workers in August. |