According to Reuters, the British security professional sparked the violence when his request that local Iraqi workers take down a flag and banners at a Schlumberger drilling site in Rumaila North was unsuccessful.
Accounts by "workers and officials" revealed that the security adviser decided to do it himself and tore up a banner portraying Shi'ite-revered martyr Imam Hussein, grandson of the Prophet Mohammad, whose death is mourned on the day of Ashura, which is tomorrow.
"In the ensuing row, the security adviser pulled out a gun and fired several shots, wounding an Iraqi worker and drawing dozens of people from a nearby village to join the workers in storming the Schlumberger drilling camp," Reuters reported.
The security adviser ended up in hospital with serious injuries while the inflamed Shi'ites also smashed up offices, with police and army called in to restore order.
Schlumberger suspended its operations in Rumaila and other oilfields in Basra province since while production from Rumaila was not impacted.
The incident follows Baker Hughes recent force majeure in Iraq which it credited to a "protest incident by local residents" at a subsidiary's facility near Basrah on Saturday.
Reuters reported that an Egyptian worker hired by Baker Hughes removed and tore up a flag that also depicted a holy Shi'ite figure at a drilling rig in Rumaila, with Iraqi authorities later deporting him.
