UK security firm says employee killed in Iraq-paper

KUWAIT, Nov 19 (Reuters) Securiforce, a UK-based firm that provides security services in Iraq, said that one of its employees was killed and three others injured in violence in Iraq on Friday, a Kuwaiti newspaper said today.

Arab Times quoted a company spokesman as saying by telephone from London that ''one of our men has been killed and his body is being kept at the British Military Hospital at Basra and the three who suffered injuries are also being treated there''.

Five Westerners, employees of another security firm called Crescent Security Group, which also has an office in Kuwait but operates in Iraq, were kidnapped a few days ago in southern Iraq.

Their company said it does not know their fate.

The securiforce spokesman, identified as Thomas, declined to give the names of the victims as the next of kin of the deceased has yet to be informed, the English-language daily said.

Arab Times said the spokesman also refused to discuss the nature of the work the men were performing or for how long they had been in Iraq.

Securiforce, which has its WASIA headquarters in Kuwait, specialises in providing convoy protection and other types of security services, it said.

REUTERS SSC ND1300