Blackwater security firm banned from Iraq

Iraq's Interior Ministry has revoked the license of Blackwater USA, an American security firm whose contractors are blamed for a Sunday gunbattle in Baghdad that left eight civilians dead. In addition to the fatalities, 14 people were wounded, most of them civilians.

The U.S. State Department said it plans to investigate what it calls a "terrible incident."

"We saw a convoy of SUVs passing in the street nearby," Hussein Abdul-Abbas, owner of a mobile phone store in the area, told the AP. "One minute later, we heard the sound of a bomb explosion followed by gunfire that lasted for 20 minutes between gunmen and the convoy people who were foreigners and dressed in civilian clothes. Everybody in the street started to flee immediately."

An Interior Ministry spokesman, Brig. Gen. Abdul Kareem Khalaf, said, "We have revoked Blackwater's license to operate in Iraq. As of now they are not allowed to operate anywhere in the Republic of Iraq. The investigation is ongoing, and all those responsible for Sunday's killing will be referred to Iraqi justice."

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki on Monday to offer "her personal and the U.S. administration's regrets" for the shootings.

Sunday's incident highlighted concerns in the U.S. Congress about a subject that one lawmaker, Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Illinois, has called "one of the biggest gray areas of the entire war effort" -- the legal status of private security firms in Iraq.

[CNN]