Tikrit attack kills US contractor

A civilian contractor working in Iraq was killed today when guerillas fired a rocket-propelled grenade at a US convoy in Tikrit.

Two American soldiers were also injured in the attack in former dictator Saddam Hussein’s home town.

The contractor’s nationality and employer were not immediately released.

He was the second to be killed this month in Tikrit. The last was a man killed by a roadside bomb as he worked for Kellogg Brown & Root.

The company had been renovating Baiji refinery and pipeline terminus about 30 miles north of Tikrit, about 125 miles north of Baghdad.

Tikrit lies in the Sunni Triangle, territory west and north of Baghdad, where most guerilla attacks on US troops have taken place.

A civilian worker also was killed earlier this month in Basra in the south of the country during a weekend of violence over electricity cuts and fuel shortages. The former Gurkha soldier, who was working for a private security firm, was delivering mail and was apparently caught in a cross fire.

Hundreds of civilian workers in Iraq are employed by Kellogg Brown & Root, a subsidiary of Halliburton, a Houston-based oilfield services and construction company.

Halliburton, the former company of Vice President Dick Cheney, has major contracts for reconstruction in both Iraq and Afghanistan.