TIKRIT, Aug 8: US troops shot dead three Iraqis in Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit on Friday, a local hospital chief said, but the military said they had killed only two, who were “illegally trafficking weapons”.

“There were three killed and five injured including two children,” said Mirza Omar, the chief of the emergency room in the town’s main hospital, as he revised an earlier toll given by the hospital’s director, Dr Salah al-Dulaimi.

“At first, we thought it was more killed because the wounded people who arrived at the hospital told us there were six dead bodies at the market,” Dr Omar said.

Dr Dulaimi said US soldiers opened fire at five arms sellers who were test-firing Kalashnikov assault rifles for customers at 8:30 am (0430 GMT).

At the hospital, an AFP photographer saw two 10-year-old children who were hit by US gunfire. One was wounded in the chest and the other in the neck.

But Lieutenant Colonel Bill MacDonald, of the Fourth Infantry Division, assigned to Tikrit, gave a different version of events.

“Soldiers of Fourth Infantry sent out an observation patrol to monitor a location where suspected former regime loyalists were trafficking illegal arms,” he said.

“At 7:30 am (0330 GMT), a team observed four men illegally trafficking weapons. The team engaged the four men. Two were wounded, two were killed.

“One of the wounded was treated at the scene, the other wounded man was evacuated to an Iraqi hospital. Both are under custody of the Iraqi national police.”

No US forces were injured, Col MacDonald added.

Soldiers who checked the area afterwards found AK-47 rifles, loaded magazines and small arms ammunition “and material that can make up improvised explosive devices, such as wires and switches.”

Col MacDonald also said three US soldiers were wounded in separate attacks around Tikrit, where the Fourth Infantry is scouring the countryside in a bid to disable the support network of Saddam and hopefully find the ousted president himself.

Two were hospitalised after roadside bomb attacks, and a third was wounded by a mortar round.—AFP