Another Pinoy killed in Iraq

Another Filipino worker was killed and four others were wounded in a mortar attack on a United States military base north of Baghdad, President Arroyo said yesterday as she ordered a security "reassessment" for thousands of Filipinos employed by the US military in Iraq.

She said the victims were employed at Camp Anaconda near Balad, which came under attack last Tuesday.

"It was a stroke of bad luck that they were exposed and unprotected at the time of the attack," Mrs. Arroyo said in a statement.

Raymond Natividad, a warehouse worker in his late 20s, was killed in the attack that left four other workers wounded, one of them seriously. The identities of the other victims are still being verified.

Foreign Affairs Secretary Delia Albert said 1,364 Filipinos are working inside the camp. They are employed by the Dubai-based company Prime Projects International, which is contracted by the US military, according to Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Jose Brillantes.

Mrs. Arroyo said she condoles with Natividad’s family, adding that she has instructed the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) and Team Iraq "to make a clear-cut assessment of the safety of our civilians employed in US military installations in Iraq. If (the 4,000 Filipino workers in Iraq) cannot be adequately secured, they must be transferred or evacuated to safer areas. This must be made clear to the employers and authorities concerned."

The President cited the official report on the incident filed by Ambassador Roy Cimatu, who heads Team Iraq, through the DFA.

"Camp Anaconda was visited by our Team Iraq ... three times before this incident. Our OFWs (overseas Filipino workers) there have been registered and their safety ensured by newly built, protective underground bunkers," she said.

Cimatu is currently in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. He is set to call a command conference with all the Philippine ambassadors in the Middle East to discuss the threat analysis and assessment for Iraq and the region.

Natividad is the latest fatality from bomb attacks by Iraqi rebels against the US-led coalition forces. Mrs. Arroyo, a staunch US ally, had sent a peacekeeping and humanitarian contingent earlier this year to help in the post-war reconstruction of Iraq. She said she will keep the contingent — which had been reduced to 43 soldiers, police and health workers — in Iraq until the turnover of power to the Iraqis by the coalition government.

The latest attack by Iraqi rebels took place more than two weeks after the President sought the Iraqi government’s assistance to help protect OFWs in Iraq through public works and municipalities minister Siddeek Barwari, who had paid a courtesy call on Mrs. Arroyo when she came here for an official visit.

The first Filipino casualty was Rodrigo Reyes, a truck driver of a private American catering firm, who was part of a convoy ambushed by Iraqi rebels on its way back to Kuwait last month. Following Reyes’ death, Mrs. Arroyo banned local employment agencies from sending Filipino nationals to work in Iraq until further notice.

Early yesterday, a woman caller told dzBB radio station that her brother, who also works at the base, said there was a suicide bombing attack that killed two Filipinos. Albert could not confirm the second fatality or details of the attack.

US officials in Baghdad had no immediate comment on the reported attack.

Recent months have seen a rise in attacks by Iraqi militants against foreigners in Iraq, regardless of the nature of their presence in the country.

The attack on Camp Anaconda came as a Russian was killed and two others kidnapped while they were driving near Baghdad.

A US-run civilian convoy was also attacked while in the western town of Rutba. Several vehicles were destroyed and several personnel were determined to be missing. The convoy was operated by a subcontractor of Kellogg, Brown & Root, the same company that employed Reyes. — With AFP