British charity worker killed in Iraq gun attack

Two civilians, a Briton and an American working in Iraq have been shot and killed in separate incidents, it emerged last night, fuelling concerns that guerrillas launching attacks on the military occupiers may be widening their targets.

Bomb expert Ian Rimell, 53, who worked for the British based charity Mines Advisory Group (Mag), was with his Iraqi bodyguard on Thursday afternoon when their vehicle with the distinctive Mag emblem was fired on by gunmen. His death comes as the government prepares to commit more troops to southern Iraq. Geoff Hoon, the defence secretary, is expected on Monday to tell MPs that hundreds more soldiers will be deployed in Basra in addition to the 10,000 already there.

Mr Rimell, from Kidderminster, Worcestershire, died and Salem Ahmed Mohammed was critically injured in the roadside ambush near the northern city of Mosul.

The attack came just a day after an American civilian working with the US military was shot and killed. The employee, who worked for a subsidiary of US oil services giant Halliburton, was travelling in an armed convoy on the main highway south into Baghdad when it came under fire. One US soldier was injured.

The US victim was the second employee of Halliburton offshoot Kellogg Brown & Root to die in an attack in the last month.

Many humanitarian groups have scaled back their operations in Iraq after a bombing devastated the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad last month. The latest killings raised concerns that the change in emphasis towards soft targets is continuing.

A Foreign Office spokeswoman confirmed Mr Rimell was the second British civilian to have died in postwar Iraq. A freelance journalist Richard Wild, 24, was shot in the head in July by a gunman. Earlier in the day Mr Rimell had cleared a scrapheap filled with ammunition and explosives. He later delivered the scrap metal for the rebuilding of a school.

Mag's executive director, Lou McGrath, said staff were devastated. "He was a dedicated humanitarian who worked so well with the local people. We are further reviewing our areas of operation in Iraq following this attack."

Mag has been in Iraq without interruption for more than a decade with 700 mainly local staff in northern Iraq.

Mr Rimell was married with three grown-up children.

The new British units likely to be assigned to Iraq are the 2nd battalion, the Light Infantry based in Cyprus, and the 1st battalion, the Royal Green Jackets. If both battalions are sent, Britain's military presence in Iraq will increase by some 1,000 troops.