Iraq’s prime minister today disputed Blackwater USA’s version of a weekend shooting that left at least 11 people dead and declared he would not tolerate “the killing of our citizens in cold blood.”

Four of the five Americans killed when a US security company’s helicopter crashed in a dangerous Sunni neighbourhood in central Baghdad were shot execution style in the back the head, Iraqi and US officials said today.

THE deaths of four employees of a local security company and the shocking way the bodies were treated helped bring the conflict in Iraq closer to home, residents of Moyock, North Carolina, said yesterday.