A US aid worker living in Iraq was ambushed and shot dead on his block Monday in front of his wife and child, police officials said.
The man was driving with his family on the street where they lived in Baghdad’s central Karrada district when a car cut him off and assailants in a second vehicle shot him.
The man, whose name hasn’t been released, was pronounced dead at Sheikh Zayed Hospital. His wife and child were unharmed, according to the officials.
Two security officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, identified the victim as a US citizen who worked for an international aid organization.
A motive for the killing is unknown and it’s not clear if the killers were trying to kidnap the man, they said. No person or group has claimed responsibility for the murder.
The family had been living in the middle-class Wahda area of Karrada since May last year, according to documents seen by the Associated Press. The streets of the neighborhood were heavily patrolled by police Monday night after the shooting.
The victim was a US citizen who worked for an international aid organization. AP
No person or group has claimed responsibility for the murder and a motive is unknown. AP
Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani said he would form a committee to investigate “the circumstances of the killing of an American citizen in the capital.”
Killings of Americans abroad in Iraq have been sparse since 2017 when the Islamic State group was defeated. Such attacks, often undertaken by extremists, had been common in the years following the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.
In 2004, two Americans were kidnapped in Baghdad and later beheaded by extremists who filmed their decapitations and released the videos to the world.
Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani is forming a committee of interior ministry and various security agencies to investigate the killing. AP
A spokesperson for the State Department said the department is looking into reports of the aid worker’s killing, but was unable to confirm the accounts of his death or whether the person was a US citizen. US Embassy officials couldn’t provide information either.
With Post wires
US aid worker ambushed, shot dead in Baghdad
