BEIRUT, July 31: Nine people, four of them women, were killed and at least five others wounded on Wednesday when an employee, angered at being refused a personal loan, opened fire at the private teachers’ mutual fund office, police said.

The incident took place when a man police identified as Ahmed Mansour opened fire with an assault-rifle at the mutual fund headquarters in an education ministry building in the UNESCO neighbourhood of Beirut.

Initial casualty reports said eight were killed and six were wounded, but hospital sources later reported that one of the wounded, who was suffering from a serious head injury, had died.

An eyewitness said the gunman “looked pale and very angry. He gathered about 10 of the employees at the balcony but when he saw the police arriving to the scene, he started shooting.

“I think he intended to hold them as hostages at first but he lost control when he saw two police cars and an army truck arriving at the scene,” the eyewitness said.

Education Minister Abdel Rahim Mrad said at the scene that Mansour got “very angry and uncontrollable” when the employees at the mutual fund told him that he could not get a loan of 19 million pounds (12,700 dollars).

He turned up for work on Wednesday with a Kalashnikov assault- rifle which he used to open fire on his colleagues.

Police were alerted by the shots and people in the streets who were screaming for help and Mansour was immediately arrested.

The brother of one of the victims, who was at the scene, was screaming in shock.—dpa