BAGHDAD, June 8: An Iraqi gunshop owner was shot dead by US troops on patrol in the tense western town of Fallujah Sunday when they mistook him for an armed assailant, witnesses said.

Mehmid Mutlag, 36, was killed instantly by the troops who saw him repairing a Kalashnikov outside his store as they patrolled the town’s marketplace, the witnesses said.

His death came just a day after US troops killed another Iraqi after coming under fire near a mosque on the town’s northern outskirts.

“Task Force 3/15 soldiers received automatic weapons fire from unknown assailants near a mosque in Fallujah” on Saturday night, US Central Command said.

“Additionally, TF 3/15 soldiers received rocket propelled grenade (RPG) fire from another location on the opposite side of the street.

“Task Force soldiers immediately returned fire, killing one individual, while the other attacker fled the scene.

“No coalition forces were injured,” Centcom said.

Attacks on US troops have been frequent in the flashpoint town 50 kilometres west of Baghdad. US soldiers also came under attack in Fallujah on Friday morning when a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) was fired at a US armoured vehicle, said a resident. No soldiers were in the vehicle and there were no casualties.

The attack triggered two searches of the kind which have fuelled resentment and bitterness over the US occupation, witnesses said. Many residents said soldiers were frisking women and flouting Islamic moral codes.

The shooting came on the heels of one US soldier being killed and five wounded in an attack in Fallujah on Thursday.

That assault on US troops in the conservative Sunni Muslim city came after two US soldiers were killed and nine wounded in an RPG attack there on May 27.—AFP