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US Troops Fire On
Demonstrators
Killing One Iraqi
| (AFP) -- US troops opened fire on a crowd of angry protesters
in Baghdad, killing one former Iraqi soldier, in the first such shooting
in the capital since it fell to US-led forces over two months ago, an AFP
correspondent witnessed. The gathering of up to 300 ex-soldiers was demonstrating at the former presidential palace in the centre of Baghdad, today coalition headquarters, and started throwing stones at US troops, who opened fire. US army spokesman Sergeant First Class Brian Thomas said that two Iraqis were wounded in the clashes, but added that he was unaware of any fatalities. "One soldier opened fire for self defense," he said. "The convoy he was in was pelted by rocks. "Two Iraqis were wounded but they were evacuated to the First Armored Division battalion aid station. Their condition is unknown at this moment." Thomas said that a full investigation would be carried out over the shooting. According to an AFP reporter who witnessed the firing, one man was fatally shot, apparently from a bullet wound to the head, while another man was left bleeding after being hit in the shoulder. Demonstrators first threw stones at an Iraqi vehicle that tried to enter the palace compound, prompting US troops to fire warning shots in the air, without causing any injuries, the reporter said. When protesters then threw stones at an all-terrain vehicle carrying US troops and civilians, and a US armoured vehicle, they again fired a volley in the air. But after the former soldiers attacked US military police guarding the compound, troops responded with fire directed at the crowd, the AFP reporter witnessed. Demonstrators then turned their anger on journalists at the scene. US forces also detained for 15 minutes a television crew from Lebanese network LBC, who were covering the demonstration. One of the protesters, Essam Mansur Hussein, a 49-year-old officer under the ousted regime, warned that they were now prepared to take up arms against the US troops occupying the city. "Every day we come to protest peacefully, but it's useless. In the coming days it will not be peaceful. They have to realise that if we have nothing to eat there will be Feyadeen (militia) operations every day. "We will blow them up one by one until they either leave or are all dead," he warned. The former soldiers were demanding salary arrears still unpaid since the top US civil administrator in Iraq, Paul Bremer, officially dissolved the Iraqi army on May 23. Others in the crowd expressed anger at the continued US presence in Iraq. "Look at this army of liberation. They came saying they would liberate us from Saddam Hussein and now they kill us. They riddle us with bullets and turn us into martyrs while they are proud of being a 'democratic' country," said Ali al Ruhaini, 46, a former junior officer. The dead soldier, in his 60s, had also been an officer. The shooting was just the latest of a series of clashes between US troops and Iraqi civilians. A US soldier was critically wounded Friday in fierce fighting in Iraq's northern capital Mosul. A similar demonstration the day before turned ugly as several hundred former members of the Iraqi army demanding their salaries tried to storm the government building in Mosul, witnesses said. A Kurdish official said initial reports indicated three demonstrators were killed by local police in that demonstration, but there was no definitive casualty toll. Similar incidents have also occurred in Fallujah, west of Baghdad, where US troops killed at least 16 people in April, and in Mosul soon after the fall of that city. Bremer, the senior US overseer in Iraq, last month abolished the Iraqi army and the network of security services which propped up Saddam Hussein's regime, announcing that a non-political army would be created. Copyright © 2002 AFP. All rights reserved. All information displayed in this section (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the contents of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presses. |
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