<!doctype html public "-//W3C//DTD W3 HTML//EN"> <html><head><style type="text/css"></style><title>U.S. Troops Fire on Iraqi Protesters</title></head><body> <div>U.S. Troops Fire on Iraqi Protesters By ELLEN KNICKMEYER .c The Associated Press FALLUJA, Iraq (AP) - Ratcheting up tensions, U.S. forces opened fire on protesters in a city outside Baghdad, saying they shot at armed men in self-defense after taking bullets from nearby rooftops. The local hospital said Tuesday that 13 Iraqis, including three preteen boys, died in the fusillade. Marchers insisted their demonstration was unarmed and peaceful. The bloodshed Monday night in Falluja, a conservative Sunni Muslim city and Baath Party stronghold 30 miles west of the capital, highlighted the tense balance the Americans are undertaking as they try to keep the peace in a nation they invaded and fully occupied barely three weeks ago. Americans and Iraqis gave sharply different accounts of Monday night's shooting outside the primary school here. U.S. forces insisted they opened fire only upon armed men - infiltrators among the protest crowd, according to Col. Arnold Bray, commanding officer of the 1st Battalion, 325 Regiment of the 82nd Airborne Division, whose troops were involved in the shooting. ``Which schoolkids carry AK-47s?'' Bray asked. ``I'm 100 percent certain the persons we shot at were armed.'' No Americans were injured. Dr. Ahmed Ghandim al-Ali, director of Falluja's general hospital, said the clash killed 13 Iraqis and injured roughly 75. The dead included three boys ages 8 to 10, Ghandim said. Some residents put the death toll higher, at 15. Survivors said the dead were buried quickly in cemeteries around the city Tuesday morning, in accord with Islamic custom. The dead and wounded being tended Tuesday in hospital wards and homes also included women and children shot inside their walled residences in the neighborhood. ``They shot everyone who moved,'' said Rafid Mahmoud, a cousin of one wounded man, said at Falluja hospital Tuesday. He stood in front of the bed of his brother, who stared at visitors, his newly amputated foot covered by a blanket. ``Americans are criminals,'' said 37-year-old Ebtesam Shamsudein, her leg bandaged. Her seven children surrounded her, one boy wearing clothes smeared with bloody palmprints. U.S. Central Command said in a statement that paratroopers of the 82nd Airborne Division were fired upon by about 25 armed civilians mixed within an estimated crowd of 200 protesters outside a compound they were occupying.</div> <div> </div> <div>``The paratroopers, who received fire from elements mixed within the crowd and positioned atop neighboring buildings, returned fire, wounding at least seven of the armed individuals,'' the statement said. Monday night's shooting was the third reported fatal clash involving U.S. troops and Iraqi protesters in two weeks, underscoring the problems that face soldiers as they try to switch modes from fighting to peacekeeping. On April 15 and 16, Marines opened fire during angry demonstrations in the northern city of Mosul. Iraqis said a total of 10 people were killed there, though details remained unclear and the Marines insisted they fired only in response. The shootings, widely reported by Arab news media, have fueled resentment of the U.S. military weeks after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein's regime. U.S. forces serving in the area said they have been trained extensively in crowd control. About half of the company involved at the school served in Kosovo peacekeeping operations, 2nd Lt. Devin Woods said. It was unclear whether the protest that sparked the shootings grew from general animosity toward Americans in Falluja, a town long considered a stronghold of Saddam support . It appeared a clash of cultures, at least, was involved. Neighborhood residents, recalling the recent days, repeatedly denounced battalion members' use of binoculars and night-vision goggles. They accused the soldiers of spying on women from the school's upper floors and rooftop. Monday night's protest started after 7:30 p.m. prayers, on Saddam Hussein's birthday, in the past an occasion for weeklong, enforced celebration. Lt. Col. Eric Nantz said the protest involved no more than 200 people - an indication, Nantz said, of support for American forces.</div> <div> Some protesters carried AK-47 assault rifles, Nantz said. U.S. soldiers sent a loudspeaker-equipped truck to urge them to stop firing into the air, he said. As the chanting crowd milled about, soldiers said, U.S. forces used illumination rounds and a smoke grenade to try to keep gun-toting protesters away. At one point, Nantz said, soldiers sent out in an armored personnel carrier fired two rounds from a 50-caliber machine gun, also in warning. A company of the battalion's soldiers, 130 in all, had been based in the school since late last week. Eventually, soldiers of the company said, protesters closed to within no more than 10 feet of the schoolhouse wall. At that point, U.S. forces said, three men on a nearby roof fired into the school. ``Everybody could see the muzzle flashes,'' said Sgt. Nkosi Campbell, who commanded the first Americans who fired, said. Even then, soldiers exercised restraint, Campbell said. ``They turned around and said, ```Hey, Sergeant, can we shoot? And that was when they were already under fire.''' Nantz said soldiers fired automatic weapons for 20 to 30 minutes. Because residents carried away the dead and wounded quickly, Bray said troops had no idea about Iraqi casualties overall. On Tuesday, pools of blood remained outside homes across from the school. Walls of homes were bullet-pitted. No bullet holes from incoming fire were obvious at the school, although soldiers said windows had been shot out. In the hospital, where Arab television stations handed microphones to victims for interviews, two beds held two of Shamsudein's brothers-in-law. Her husband, the man with the amputated foot, was the first to be shot - wounded when he ran to try to close the gate to keep participants in the protest out, and his children in. Shamsuedein was shot while trying to help him. One of the brothers who came out to help was shot in the heart and died, Mahmoud and doctors said. The men's mother, 65, came out of the home to see, and was shot in the shoulder. ``They go out to save one another, you know,'' Mahmoud said. ``They are brothers.'' (ek-ta/rr)</div> <div> </div> <x-sigsep><pre>-- </pre></x-sigsep> <div>Marta Russell Los Angeles, CA http://www.disweb.org</div> </body> </html>