Anger
Mounts After U.S. Troops Kill
13 Iraqi Protesters
By
Edmund Blair
Reuters
29 April, 2003
FALLUJA, Iraq - 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.
Medics said 75 were also
wounded in the march by more than 200 protesters on the school after
Muslim prayers on Monday evening in Falluja, 30 miles from the Iraqi
capital. Some witnesses put the death toll as high as 17.
Residents said the marchers
were unarmed. U.S. forces said the troops opened fire only after they
were shot at by a group of gunmen armed with AK-47 assault rifles.
An Iraqi man lies injured in his hospital bed surrounded by his parents
in Falluja hospital, 50 kms (30 miles) west of Baghdad, April 29, 2003.
U.S. troops shot dead at least 13 Iraqis during an anti-American protest
in the town overnight, witnesses said on Tuesday, in a clash likely
to inflame anger at the U.S. presence in Iraq. REUTERS/Ruben Sprich
The shooting outraged local people who, like many other Iraqis, welcomed
the removal of Saddam Hussein by U.S.-led forces but now want the American
troops to leave. It is likely to fuel anti-American sentiment elsewhere
in Iraq.
U.S. helicopters hovered
overhead as angry mourners buried the dead on Tuesday. The white walls
of houses near the school were pock-marked by bullets, bullet-riddled
cars stood by the roadside and traces of blood marked the ground.
"Our soul and our blood
we will sacrifice to you martyrs," hundreds of mourners chanted
as they carried at least four simple wooden coffins shoulder-high through
the town.
Ahmed Ghanim al-Ali, director
of Falluja general hospital, confirmed the death toll was at least 13
and said the hospital had carried out about 30 operations in the past
few hours. "Some were wounded by shots. Some were wounded by shrapnel,"
he said.
"They are stealing our
oil and they are slaughtering our people," said Shuker Abdullah
Hamid, a cousin of one of the victims, 47-year-old Tuamer Abdel Hamid.
"Now, all preachers
of Falluja mosques and all youths...are organizing martyr operations
against the American occupiers," said a man cloaked in white, using
the term often used to describe suicide attacks in the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict.
There have been a few isolated
suicide attacks at military checkpoints, and U.S. troops killed seven
Iraqis during a violent demonstration in the northern city of Mosul
on April 15, but most anti-American protests have ended peacefully.
U.S. MILITARY
A U.S. military spokeswoman
said at war headquarters in Qatar that soldiers in Falluja opened fire
on gunmen who shot at them with assault rifles.
"Members of the 1st
Battalion of the 325th Airborne Infantry Regiment of the 82nd Airborne
Division came upon a group of Iraqis armed with AK-47s last night,"
the spokeswoman said. "The Iraqis fired on them. The troops returned
fire."
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.
Murhij Rashid, 52, pointed
to a grave where gravediggers were throwing dry earth on top and kicking
up dust. His 18-year-old son Hussein had just been buried.
"There was a demonstration
but he did not have any weapon," he said.
Some residents said some
of the dead may not have been taking part in the protest.
Salah Abdullah Hamid said
his cousin, a 36-year-old man employed by the Oil Ministry, was an innocent
bystander.
"He was not part of
the protest. He did not have a weapon. He was killed by American bullets,"
he said.
Asked why the troops had
fired, he replied: "We don't know. No one knows why...We want the
Americans to leave our country completely. We are a Muslim country."
Mahmoud Fawzi Hamdan, 33,
said one man, 32-year-old Waleed Saleh Abdel-Latif, was shot dead as
he opened the gate to his house for his brother to drive in and two
women in the house were hit by bullets but survived.