U.S. Troops Kill at Least 13 Protesters
Tue April 29, 2003 04:52 AM ET
By Edmund Blair
FALLUJA, Iraq (Reuters) - U.S. troops shot dead at least 13 Iraqis staging an anti-American protest in the town of Falluja overnight, residents said on Tuesday, in a clash likely to fuel anger at the U.S. presence in Iraq.
Residents of the town 30 miles west of Baghdad told Reuters that between 13 and 17 people were killed and many wounded when soldiers occupying a local school fired on unarmed demonstrators who had been calling for U.S. troops to get out of their country following the ousting of Saddam Hussein.
Mourners began burying the dead on Tuesday, chanting: "Our soul and our blood we will sacrifice to you martyrs."
American soldiers in Falluja declined all comment to Reuters. U.S. Central Command in Qatar said it knew nothing of a shooting and senior officers in Baghdad said they had no news.
Al-Jazeera and CNN television quoted U.S. troops saying they came under fire after asking the crowd to disperse and had to retaliate. Numerous local people said about 200 unarmed people had asked the Americans to leave the school so it could reopen.
"They opened fire on the protesters because they went out to demonstrate," Sunni Muslim cleric Kamal Shaker Mahmoud, who lives near the school, told Reuters.
"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.
The shooting in Falluja followed an attack on U.S. forces in the northern city of Mosul on Monday evening in which at least six Iraqi fighters were killed. At least 12 civilians were killed near Baghdad on Saturday when an Iraqi arms dump blew up, triggering protests about U.S. troops' handling of the weapons.
The troubles may puncture some of the optimism expressed by Iraqis and the U.S.-British administration after a watershed meeting convened by U.S. reconstruction chief Jay Garner on Monday where some 250 Iraqis began efforts to build a democracy.
Those at the meeting agreed to hold a conference within four weeks to choose an interim government to replace three decades of Saddam's iron rule.
"This is the start of democracy. Discussions were serious and deep. It is a long and difficult road but we shall cross it," said one delegate, Hatem Mokhless.
OIL CHIEF DETAINED
U.S. forces announced they were holding Saddam's veteran oil minister, Amir Muhammed Rasheed, whose wife is bioweapons scientist Rihab Taha -- widely known as Dr Germ.
He was number 47 on a U.S. list of the 55 most wanted members of Saddam's administration and the six of spades in a deck of cards issued to troops hunting former Iraqi leaders.
The United States has now captured 14 of those on the list.
U.S. troops were widely welcomed for overthrowing Saddam but many Iraqis are now anxious for them to go home.
The U.S. military said in Baghdad it was moving reinforcements to the capital.
Major General Glenn Webster said 3,000 to 4,000 infantry and military policemen would be sent over the next seven to 10 days. The United States already has 12,000 troops in Baghdad, with 150,000 more in other parts of Iraq.
"The coalition command is the single authority in Iraq at this time and our purpose is to provide security and stability in the country so the people of Iraq can elect their own leaders and get the country running again," Webster told reporters.
He said this was not connected to any specific incident.
U.S. Central Command said in a statement that former oil minister Rasheed had surrendered on Monday. It gave no details.
Rasheed ran Iraq's military industries until becoming oil minister in 1995. His wife, known as "Dr Germ," is not on the most wanted list but U.S. forces are keen to interview her about Saddam's alleged attempts to develop biological warfare systems.
Rasheed was last seen by journalists at Baghdad's Doura oil refinery on March 25, surrounded by burning pits of oil as bombs fell on nearby Baghdad. The oil smoke was a defensive measure.
WHERE IS SADDAM?
Saddam's fate remain a mystery. His sons Qusay and Uday have also not been found, nor have the weapons of mass destruction which the United States said justified the war.
Key former Iraqi officials in U.S. custody, including former Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz, say Iraq had no biological, chemical or nuclear weapons because they had all been destroyed, a U.S. official said in Washington on Monday.
President Bush, speaking on Monday in Dearborn, Michigan, said the United States had no intention of imposing its form of government or culture on Iraq and would ensure all Iraqis had a say in the new government.
"Whether you're Sunni or Shia or Kurd or Chaldean or Assyrian or Turkmen or Christian or Jew or Muslim, no matter what your faith, freedom is God's gift to every person in every nation," Bush told an audience that included a large number of Arab and Muslim immigrants to the United States.
U.S. officials have agreed with invited Iraqi delegates that Iraq should become a federal democracy and Washington has made it will not tolerate Iranian-style clerical rule in Iraq, where 60 percent of the population share Iran's Shi'ite Muslim faith.
U.S. officers in Mosul said two of their positions in the city came under sustained fire on Monday night and they hit back with heavy machineguns and helicopter gunships. They said at least six suspected paramilitaries were killed.
The U.S military, moving to realign itself in the Gulf after the Iraq war, has moved operations of a key combat air control center from a Saudi airbase to neighboring Qatar, U.S. officers said on Tuesday.
"We already have switched, as of yesterday," U.S. Navy Rear Admiral Dave Nichols told reporters traveling with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on a visit to Saudi Arabia.
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle....XSO0F0CRBAELCFEY?type=topNews&storyID=2647660
Tue April 29, 2003 04:52 AM ET
By Edmund Blair
FALLUJA, Iraq (Reuters) - U.S. troops shot dead at least 13 Iraqis staging an anti-American protest in the town of Falluja overnight, residents said on Tuesday, in a clash likely to fuel anger at the U.S. presence in Iraq.
Residents of the town 30 miles west of Baghdad told Reuters that between 13 and 17 people were killed and many wounded when soldiers occupying a local school fired on unarmed demonstrators who had been calling for U.S. troops to get out of their country following the ousting of Saddam Hussein.
Mourners began burying the dead on Tuesday, chanting: "Our soul and our blood we will sacrifice to you martyrs."
American soldiers in Falluja declined all comment to Reuters. U.S. Central Command in Qatar said it knew nothing of a shooting and senior officers in Baghdad said they had no news.
Al-Jazeera and CNN television quoted U.S. troops saying they came under fire after asking the crowd to disperse and had to retaliate. Numerous local people said about 200 unarmed people had asked the Americans to leave the school so it could reopen.
"They opened fire on the protesters because they went out to demonstrate," Sunni Muslim cleric Kamal Shaker Mahmoud, who lives near the school, told Reuters.
"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.
The shooting in Falluja followed an attack on U.S. forces in the northern city of Mosul on Monday evening in which at least six Iraqi fighters were killed. At least 12 civilians were killed near Baghdad on Saturday when an Iraqi arms dump blew up, triggering protests about U.S. troops' handling of the weapons.
The troubles may puncture some of the optimism expressed by Iraqis and the U.S.-British administration after a watershed meeting convened by U.S. reconstruction chief Jay Garner on Monday where some 250 Iraqis began efforts to build a democracy.
Those at the meeting agreed to hold a conference within four weeks to choose an interim government to replace three decades of Saddam's iron rule.
"This is the start of democracy. Discussions were serious and deep. It is a long and difficult road but we shall cross it," said one delegate, Hatem Mokhless.
OIL CHIEF DETAINED
U.S. forces announced they were holding Saddam's veteran oil minister, Amir Muhammed Rasheed, whose wife is bioweapons scientist Rihab Taha -- widely known as Dr Germ.
He was number 47 on a U.S. list of the 55 most wanted members of Saddam's administration and the six of spades in a deck of cards issued to troops hunting former Iraqi leaders.
The United States has now captured 14 of those on the list.
U.S. troops were widely welcomed for overthrowing Saddam but many Iraqis are now anxious for them to go home.
The U.S. military said in Baghdad it was moving reinforcements to the capital.
Major General Glenn Webster said 3,000 to 4,000 infantry and military policemen would be sent over the next seven to 10 days. The United States already has 12,000 troops in Baghdad, with 150,000 more in other parts of Iraq.
"The coalition command is the single authority in Iraq at this time and our purpose is to provide security and stability in the country so the people of Iraq can elect their own leaders and get the country running again," Webster told reporters.
He said this was not connected to any specific incident.
U.S. Central Command said in a statement that former oil minister Rasheed had surrendered on Monday. It gave no details.
Rasheed ran Iraq's military industries until becoming oil minister in 1995. His wife, known as "Dr Germ," is not on the most wanted list but U.S. forces are keen to interview her about Saddam's alleged attempts to develop biological warfare systems.
Rasheed was last seen by journalists at Baghdad's Doura oil refinery on March 25, surrounded by burning pits of oil as bombs fell on nearby Baghdad. The oil smoke was a defensive measure.
WHERE IS SADDAM?
Saddam's fate remain a mystery. His sons Qusay and Uday have also not been found, nor have the weapons of mass destruction which the United States said justified the war.
Key former Iraqi officials in U.S. custody, including former Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz, say Iraq had no biological, chemical or nuclear weapons because they had all been destroyed, a U.S. official said in Washington on Monday.
President Bush, speaking on Monday in Dearborn, Michigan, said the United States had no intention of imposing its form of government or culture on Iraq and would ensure all Iraqis had a say in the new government.
"Whether you're Sunni or Shia or Kurd or Chaldean or Assyrian or Turkmen or Christian or Jew or Muslim, no matter what your faith, freedom is God's gift to every person in every nation," Bush told an audience that included a large number of Arab and Muslim immigrants to the United States.
U.S. officials have agreed with invited Iraqi delegates that Iraq should become a federal democracy and Washington has made it will not tolerate Iranian-style clerical rule in Iraq, where 60 percent of the population share Iran's Shi'ite Muslim faith.
U.S. officers in Mosul said two of their positions in the city came under sustained fire on Monday night and they hit back with heavy machineguns and helicopter gunships. They said at least six suspected paramilitaries were killed.
The U.S military, moving to realign itself in the Gulf after the Iraq war, has moved operations of a key combat air control center from a Saudi airbase to neighboring Qatar, U.S. officers said on Tuesday.
"We already have switched, as of yesterday," U.S. Navy Rear Admiral Dave Nichols told reporters traveling with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on a visit to Saudi Arabia.
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle....XSO0F0CRBAELCFEY?type=topNews&storyID=2647660
