Agencies

The family of the Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at former US president George W. Bush is preparing a festive welcome for the TV reporter, who is to be released from prison today after nine months behind bars.

At his family's home in Baghdad on Sunday, relatives of Muntazar Zaidi were already celebrating, waving Iraqi flags and hanging balloons and posters of the reporter on the walls.

Zaidi, a little-known reporter for a small Iraqi TV station, became an icon for many in the Arab world in a single moment last December. As Bush and Iraq's prime minister addressed a news conference, the reporter jumped from his seat and hurled his shoes at the American president.

Bush was unhurt but forced to duck. Zaidi shouted at him in Arabic: "This is your farewell kiss, you dog! This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq."

Many throughout the Middle East felt the protest reflected their own frustration and bitterness over the war in Iraq and the US occupation. His act was widely celebrated and even inspired Internet games and T-shirts and led some to try to offer their daughters to him in marriage.

The 30-year-old Zaidi's family says he might use his newfound celebrity status to promote humanitarian causes such as the rights of orphans and women.

His employer, Al Baghdadiya TV, expects he will return to work as a television reporter for the station, though some have questioned how he would be able to work again as a journalist in Iraq.

His actions deeply embarrassed Prime Minister Nouri Maliki, and many officials in his government would likely blacklist the reporter.

In March, Zaidi was convicted of assault. His three-year prison sentence was reduced to one because he had no prior record and now he is to be released three months early for good behaviour.

"God forbid if he is not released on time," his brother Dargham said on Sunday.

The family hung posters showing Zaidi's face in front of an Iraqi flag and the words: "Release the one who regained Iraqis' dignity." The family is expected to meet him at the gates of a prison in central Baghdad on Monday. Parties and music are planned at his family's home later in the day.

His family is worried about his safety and will try to keep celebrations small because of security concerns, Dargham said.

In 2007, Zaidi, a Shiite, was kidnapped by gunmen while on an assignment in a Sunni district of north Baghdad. He was freed unharmed three days later after Iraqi television stations broadcast appeals for his release.

Then in January 2008, he was arrested by American soldiers who searched his apartment building and released him the next day with an apology.

Those experiences helped mould his resentment of the US military's presence in Iraq, according to his family.

Violence

Gunmen stormed the house of a Kurdish policeman on Sunday and shot dead his wife and three children while they slept, Iraqi police said, an attack possibly aimed at inciting violence between Arabs and Kurds.

The attack took place in a Kurdish neighbourhood of the disputed northern city of Kirkuk, 250km north of Baghdad, which Iraqi Kurds claim as their ancestral capital and want to annex to their largely autonomous region, something the oil-producing city's Arab residents reject.

"He came back to his home this morning and found his children and their mother shot in the head while they were asleep," a police official said, asking not to be named because he was not authorised to speak to the media.

Police and soldiers are a main target of Sunni Islamist insurgents like Al Qaeda and other groups trying to undermine Iraq's government and reignite the sectarian slaughter that brought the country to the brink of civil war in 2006/07.

"We will hunt down the perpetrators of this crime and we will present them to justice," said local police Brigadier-General Sarhat Qader.

War between majority Shiite Muslims and Sunni Arabs, who were dominant under Saddam Hussein, has abated, but a spate of bombings since US troops pulled out of Iraqi cities in June has cast a cloud over the security gains of the past 18 months.

Five off-duty Iraqi soldiers were killed on Saturday near the city of Baiji, 180 km north of Baghdad, when gunmen fired on their car in a drive-by shooting.

US officials are most worried that tensions between Arabs and ethnic Kurds over land, oil and power could trigger Iraq's next major conflict. They say Al Qaeda and other groups are exploiting those tensions to stage attacks in the north.

Police in Kirkuk issued photographs of the Kurdish policeman's dead wife and children, aged from one to 3-1/2 years, lying in a bed together. It was not clear if they had been killed in the bed.

Meanwhile, a civilian contractor was shot and killed Sunday on an American military base in the Iraqi city of Tikrit and a soldier has been detained, the US military said.

The contractor, whose name was being withheld pending notification of next of kin, was shot at 8:30am at Camp Speicher, the military said in a statement.

Maj. Derrick Cheng, a public affairs officer, said he could not divulge the name of the contractor's company or any other details about him.

He did say, however, that a soldier had been detained in the incident.

"We offer our sincere condolences to the family of the individual," he said.

The investigation into the incident is ongoing, Cheng said.

The US military makes wide use of contractors in Iraq for security, technical support and supply functions.

As of June 30, 1,395 civilian employees of US government contractors had been killed in Iraq, according to an AP count.