A senior employee of Iraq’s state-owned North Oil Company (NOC) was gunned down in Kirkuk as he drove to work along with three other coworkers, Reuters report. One coworker was also killed, while the remaining two were severely wounded.
Hassan Salim, the NOC’s deputy inspector-general, is only the latest victim in a series of presumed assassinations targeting NOC employees. The company’s chief of operations, Saad al-Karbalaie, was killed in June, and his successor, Saad Ali Hussain, was gunned down in August, in similar attacks.
Anonymous NOC officials have suggested that the deputy inspector-general’s murder may be related to the several corruption probes Salim was conducting inside the company.
"When you have an official running a corruption investigation getting killed, then it's a bloody message from parties that could get exposed to stop chasing them," one of the officials said.
"Until now we have lost three officials and more to come. North Oil Company is becoming more of a mafia courtyard rather than a state-run firm."
Kirkuk remains a hotbed for ethnic and sectarian conflict, as Kurds, Arabs, and Turkmen strive to gain control of the region.
