An Iraqi man lies dead in the street and as others, some injured, scramble for safety in Fallujah, Iraq Wednesday April 30, 2003. U.S. troops opened fire on demonstrators for the second time this week as Iraqis marched Wednesday to protest the previous shooting. The city's mayor said two people were killed and 14 wounded in the clash. An Army officer said soldiers in a convoy passing the demonstrators were shot at, and then returned fire. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
By Charles J. Hanley
AP
Yahoo! News
FALLUJAH, Iraq - U.S. troops opened fire on anti-American demonstrators for the second time this week as Iraqis marched Wednesday to protest the previous shooting. The city's mayor said two people were killed and 14 wounded in the clash.
U.S. Central Command said soldiers in a convoy passing the demonstrators were shot at, and then returned fire. But city officials who witnessed the incident said they saw or heard no shooting from among the protesters.
There was no immediate indication of American casualties.
The gunfire came less than 48 hours after a shooting during a demonstration Monday night that hospital officials said killed 13 Iraqis.
The clashes in Fallujah, a conservative Sunni Muslim city and Baath Party stronghold 30 miles west of Baghdad, reflect the area's increasing tensions as American troops try to keep the peace in Iraq.
About 1,000 residents marching down Fallujah's main street stopped Wednesday in front of a battalion headquarters of the U.S. Army's 82nd Airborne Division, in a compound formerly occupied by Saddam Hussein's Baath Party. The demonstrators carried signs condemning Monday night's shooting.
This was no peaceful demonstration, the Americans insisted. They said protesters threw rocks and shoes; Maj. Michael Marti, an intelligence officer for the division's 2nd Brigade, said a vehicle window was broken by what was believed to be automatic weapons fire.
Lt. Col. Tobin Green, commander of the 2nd squadron of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, which is taking over from the 82nd Airborne in Fallujah, said a six-vehicle convoy was shot at and responded with gunfire.
"The evildoers are deliberately placing at risk the good civilians. These are deliberate actions by the enemy to use the population as cover," said Green.
U.S. Central Command in Doha, Qatar, said American forces fired in response to rock-throwing and weapons fire.
"The convoy returned fire, and the crowd was dispersed by the arrival of coalition helicopters," said Capt. Stewart Upton, a Central Command spokesman.
Fallujah Mayor Taha Bedaiwi al-Alwani said two people were killed and 14 wounded and asked for an investigation and compensation for victims.
After a meeting Wednesday with U.S. troops, the mayor said U.S. soldiers have been asked to stay away from mosques, residential areas and other sensitive places. The Americans agreed to study the request.
"Many people believe these are occupying forces. And many of them are still cautious until they see their intentions," said al-Alwani, a former Iraqi exile and opponent of the previous regime.
An Iraqi killed during an anti-U.S. protest is buried in a Falluja cemetery, 30 miles west of Baghdad, April 29, 2003. According to witnesses, U.S. troops shot dead at least 13 Iraqis during the protests. The bloodshed is sure to inflame anger at the U.S. presence in Iraq. Witnesses told Reuters the troops opened fire on unarmed demonstrators, but U.S. officers said their men returned fire after being shot at first. (Ruben Sprich/Reuters)
U.S. officers met with the mayor and leading area sheiks in hopes of reducing the tensions, while several dozen demonstrators clustered angrily outside the town hall.
"Get out, get out!" one protester shouted at soldiers guarding the meeting.
"We will keep this up, we will keep them on edge," said another protester, 29-year-old Abdul Adim Mohammed Hussein.
Emerging from the meeting, the imam of the Grand Fallujah Mosque, Jamal Shaqir Mahmood, said "The Americans said 'we won't reduce the numbers, they're needed for security.' But the people of Fallujah told them we already have security."
During Saddam's rule, Fallujah was a stronghold of the ruling Baath Party, in part because of the presence of key chemical and other factories of the regime's military-industrial complex that provided jobs to workers and generated wealth to local businessmen.
Fallujah sent many of its young men to elite regime units such as the Republican Guard and Special Republican Guard, and the fall of Saddam threatens the city's network of privilege and power.
The American forces have given no indication they might cut back their presence here. However, U.S. forces did leave their station at the school where Monday's shooting took place.
From the back of a pickup truck, Jamal addressed a crowd of 250 people Wednesday.
"We demand the Americans leave this place," Jamal said. "(But) please don't confront the U.S. troops."
As they did after Wednesday's incident, Americans and Iraqis have given sharply differing accounts of Monday night's shooting. Paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne said they opened fire only upon armed men—about 25 infiltrators among a crowd of 200. Protesters insisted their demonstration was unarmed and peaceful.
Dr. Ahmed Ghandim al-Ali, director of Fallujah's general hospital, said the clash Monday killed 13 Iraqis—including three young boys—and injured about 75. Some residents put the death toll higher, at 15.
No Americans were injured.
U.S soldiers sit on top of school desks at a primary school in Fallujah, Iraq manning sniper positions at the windows Tuesday April 29, 2003. U.S. soldiers opened fire fired on anti-American protesters Monday night after some Iraqi crowd members shot at the troops, a U.S. officer said Tuesday. A local hospital director said 13 Iraqis were killed and 75 injured. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder) AP - Apr 29 1:01 PM
Reuters, AFP and AP
FALLUJAH -- U.S. soldiers killed at least 13 Iraqi civilians who marched on a school west of Baghdad to demand the troops leave the building and get out of Iraq, doctors and witnesses said on Tuesday.
Witnesses in the town of Fallujah, west of Baghdad, told AFP that US
troops had opened fire late Monday on demonstrators celebrating
Saddam's
66th birthday, killing 13 and wounding 75.
"The shooting broke out when 500 protestors carrying portraits of
Saddam
and Iraqi flags approached a school manned by US troops," said
Mohammed
Hamid, a resident of the town, 50 kilometres (30 miles) west of the
capital.
Another witness who asked not to be identified said the US soldiers
were "not threatened by the demonstrators."
Of the 13, dead who were swiftly buried Tuesday in accordance with
Islamic tradition, six were children aged just seven or eight, the
second witness said.
The shooting took place about 10:30 p.m. Monday in the town of
Fallujah,
30 miles west of Baghdad.
Dr. Ahmed Ghanim al-Ali, director of Fallujah General Hospital, said
there were 13 dead, including three boys under 11 years old.
He said his medical crews were shot at when they went to retrieve the
injured, which he said numbered 75 people.
A young man shows off his "Saddam Hussein" T-shirt at a street in Baghdad. Thirteen Iraqis were killed and 45 wounded in Fallujah, when US troops opened fire on demonstrators.(AFP/Sabah Arar)
A local Sunni Muslim cleric, Kamal Shaker Mahmoud, said the protesters had asked the troops to leave the school so that lessons could resume there.
"It was a peaceful demonstration. They did not have any weapons," the cleric said.
"They (the U.S. troops) opened fire on the protesters because they went out to demonstrate.''
"We are asking the Americans to leave Iraq completely but first we want them to leave residential areas," he added.
The al-Jazeera television station, quoting local residents, said the U.S. troops opened fire after someone threw a rock at the school.
Residents said the shooting continued for at least 30 minutes.
Edtesam Shamsudeim, 37, said her 45-year-old brother died in the gunfire. She was shot in the leg and her husband was wounded.
"We were sitting in our house. When the shooting started, my husband tried to close the door to keep the children in, and he was shot," she said at the hospital, sitting in a chair with a bandaged leg, surrounded by some of her children.
An Iraqi boy, Bahaa Mohammed, age 9, lies in a hospital in Fallujah, Iraq Tuesday April 29, 2003 after U.S. soldiers fired during a demonstration by anti-American protesters the night before, according U.S. officer. The U.S. soldiers opened fire after some Iraqi crowd members shot at the troops, the officer said Tuesday. A local hospital director said 13 Iraqis were killed and 75 injured. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
Outside the school Tuesday afternoon, people chanted for U.S. forces to leave Iraq.
"Go, go USA!" they said in Arabic, adding some English at the end: "Go away!"
Thousands of distraught people were attending funerals for the victims Tuesday, al-Jazeera reported.
"They are stealing our oil and they are slaughtering our people," Shuker Abdullah Hamid told Reuters as he helped bury a man he said was his cousin at a local cemetery.
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