Iraqi North Oil Co. employees shot dead in Kirkuk

KIRKUK, Kurdistan Region (K24) – The Director of Crime Prevention Office in Kirkuk Province, Razwan Shukur stated on Sunday that some unknown militants in the province have executed several employees of Iraq's state-run North Oil Company (NOC).

On Sunday, Shukur revealed to K24 that "some unknown militants have shot Hassan Salim, Deputy Inspector-General of NOC and his driver in the Wahda neighborhood of Kirkuk and were consequently both killed."Shukur mentioned that the militants also shot and killed two more employees of the company at the time, Ali Ehsan and Ala Khalaf, both were engineers in NOC in Kirkuk.

Shukur noted that "the militants were driving a BMW and that after killing the two employees, "escaped to an unknown location."

According to Reuters, NOC's chief of operations, Saad al-Karbalaie was killed in late June. Over a month later, his successor at the state-run firm, Chief Engineer Saad Ali Hussain was also gunned down.

Two NOC officials who requested anonymity told Reuters that the Deputy Inspector-General was conducting multiple corruption probes inside the company.

Shukur also said that within the past week, six residents in Kirkuk, including Kurds and Arabs were kidnapped by unknown militants.

Shukur stated that Kirkuk police rescued one of the kidnapped persons who was a child, the son of a businessman in the province. "The militants aimed to kidnap the kid for ransom," he said.

He explained another kidnapped case in further detail, "Recently, militants noticed that somebody on Quds street has so much money on his person. They militants followed him and then tortured him somewhere, broke his hand and took all the money and then threw him onto the street."

Moreover, Shukur stated that on Monday afternoon, four militants who wore military uniforms driving a Ford vehicle kidnapped another businessman named Nasir Mahmoud in the Hai Wasit neighborhood in Kirkuk.

He stressed that the number of kidnapping is on the rise in the province and police are looking to arrest these kidnappers and militants.

Brigadier-General Sarhad Qadir, Chief of Kirkuk's districts and sub-districts police told K24 on Monday that Kirkuk Police launched a large-scale operation in all districts and towns in Kirkuk, and arrested four "suspected terrorists."

"They had a hand in several terrorist activities in the province," Qadir added.

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K24 Reporter in Kirkuk province Soran Kamaran contributed to this report.