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Politics

Official: Guards caught on videotape

Blackwater USA guards are shown firing on civilians, a senior Iraqi says.

BAGHDAD - Iraqi investigators have a videotape that shows Blackwater USA guards opened fire against civilians without provocation in an incident Sept. 16 in which 11 people died, a senior Iraqi official said Saturday. He said the case had been referred to the Iraqi judiciary.

Iraq's president, meanwhile, demanded that the Americans release an Iranian arrested last week on suspicion of smuggling weapons to Shiite militias. The demand adds new strains to U.S.-Iraqi relations only days before a meeting between President Bush and Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

Interior Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf said Iraqi authorities had completed an investigation into the shooting in Nisoor Square in western Baghdad and concluded that Blackwater guards were responsible for the deaths.

He told the Associated Press that the conclusion was based on witness statements as well as videotape shot by cameras at the nearby headquarters of the national police command. He said eight people were killed at the scene and three of the 15 wounded died in hospitals.

Blackwater, which provides most of the security for U.S. diplomats and civilian officials in Iraq, has insisted that its guards came under fire from armed insurgents and shot back only to defend themselves.

Khalaf also said the ministry was looking into six other fatal shootings involving the Moyock, N.C., company, including a Feb. 7 incident outside Iraqi state television in Baghdad in which three building guards were fatally shot.

Also Saturday, the U.S. military announced the death of two more U.S. soldiers - one of an unspecified noncombat-related injury and another in a vehicle accident in Diyala province.

Seven insurgents were killed and 12 captured in a raid in Musayyib, south of Baghdad. One of those captured is believed to know the whereabouts of senior al-Qaida leaders, the U.S. said.

[Last modified September 23, 2007, 01:47:33]