BAGHDAD (Anadolu/AP) – The Iraqi government said Tuesday it will investigate the killing of a U.S. citizen in the capital Baghdad a day earlier.
Local media said the American citizen was killed after he was fired upon in the central Karrada district on Monday.
In a statement, the government’s Central Media Cell said a committee was formed to look into the details of the U.S. citizen’s death and arrest perpetrators.
According to local media, Iraqi security forces launched a manhunt for killers of the American citizen.
U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters that the department was aware of the reports of the killing and was looking into them.
U.S.-led troops ended occupation of Iraq in December 2021, with remaining troops playing an alleged advisory role to Iraqi security forces.
Assailants fatally shot the American in a rare killing of a foreigner in the Iraqi capital in recent years, two police officials said.
The man was shot in his car as he entered the street where he lives on the east bank of the Tigris River but the reason for the killing was not immediately clear, they said. They said the man’s wife and child were in the car with him but were not hurt.
The officials said as the man drove through his street, a car cut him off and assailants in another car shot him dead. It was not immediately clear if the assailants were trying to kidnap the man, they said.
According to documents seen by The Associated Press, the man had been renting an apartment in Karrada’s Wahda area since May last year.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the killing.
U.S. Embassy officials when contacted by The Associated Press could not immediately provide any information about the case.
Two security officials confirmed a U.S. citizen who worked for an international aid organization had been killed without giving his name.
A medical worker at Sheikh Zayed Hospital, where the victim was taken, said he was dead on arrival.
Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani said he would form a committee comprising the interior ministry and various security agencies to “investigate the circumstances of the killing of an American citizen in the capital.”