Foreign civilians targeted

last updated 8 January 2015

Mosul, Iraq

Eight aid workers were killed in Iraq this week in three separate drive-by shootings, in what appears to be a concerted assault on foreign civilians. Four U.S. missionaries were killed and one wounded when their car was blasted by gunfire near Mosul, where they were delivering relief supplies. One day later, two European engineers—a German and a Dutchman—were killed in a similar shooting attack on their car in southern Iraq. That area was also the scene of an ambush that killed two U.S. civilians working for the Coalition Provisional Authority. Civilians are growing increasingly nervous. “When I’m driving around, my weapon sits on my lap now, not in my holster,” telecom specialist Bill Evans told The New York Times.