Baghdad ? The woman had turned her car into a taxi service for government employees to make money to raise her three daughters after her husband died during heart surgery.

Traveling the streets of Baghdad is a risky business, fraught with dangers of random car bombings and drive-by shootings, and many Iraqis are willing to pay for a safe ride.

But Marou Awanis, a Christian, did not lose her life at the hands of insurgents. She and another Christian woman in the passenger’s seat were gunned down by guards from a foreign security company at an intersection in an affluent neighborhood of the capital, Iraqi officials said.

It was the latest seemingly unprovoked attack on civilians that has drawn intense scrutiny to the heavily armed and some say trigger-happy teams of foreign private security firms. And it came in the midst of a firestorm over Blackwater USA guards who allegedly opened fire without provocation in Baghdad three weeks ago and killed 17 people.

“Today’s incident is part of a series of reckless actions by some security companies,” Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said.

The shootings came one day after the Iraqi government handed U.S. officials the report from an Iraqi investigation of the Blackwater incident ordered by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. It called for the company to pay $8 million in compensation to the families of each victim. The commission also said Blackwater guards had killed 21 other Iraqis since it began protecting American diplomats in Iraq shortly after the U.S.-led invasion 4 1/2 years ago.

In the latest case, Interior Ministry spokesman Abdul-Karim Khalaf said the Dubai-based Unity Resources Group guards shot the women and the company apologized to the Iraqi government. The shooting occurred near Unity offices in central Baghdad’s Karradah district.

The deaths Tuesday may sharpen demands to curb the expanding array of security firms in Iraq watching over diplomats, aid groups and others.

“We deeply regret this incident,” said a statement from Michael Priddin, the chief operating officer of Unity Resources Group, a security company owned by Australian partners but with headquarters in Dubai.

Priddin said the company would disclose more details of the shooting after “the facts have been verified and the necessary people and authorities notified.” Priddin would not comment on whether his guards killed the women.

But initial accounts – from company statements, witnesses and others – suggested the guards opened fire as the car failed to heed warnings to stop and drifted closer to the convoy. They killed the two women before speeding away.

It was not immediately clear whether the guards were protecting a client at the time, but a group that uses its security agents said its personnel were not at the scene.

Four armored SUVs – three white and one gray – were about 100 yards from an main intersection in the Shiite-controlled district. As the car, a white Oldsmobile, moved into the crossroads, the Unity guards threw a smoke bomb in an apparent bid to warn the car not to come closer, said Riyadh Majid, an Iraqi policeman who saw the shooting.

Two of the Unity guards then opened fire. The woman driving the car tried to stop, but was killed along with her passenger. Two of three people in the back seat were wounded.

Priddin’s statement offers a similar account: “The first information that we have is that our security team was approached at speed by a vehicle which failed to stop despite an escalation of warnings which included hand signals and a signal flare. Finally shots were fired at the vehicle and it stopped.”

Iraqi police investigators said they collected 19 spent 5.56mm shell casings, ammunition commonly use by U.S. and NATO forces and most Western security organizations. The pavement was stained with blood and covered with shattered glass from the car windows.