BAGHDAD, Aug 11: US soldiers in Baghdad on Saturday shot dead an Iraqi policeman they mistook for an attacker, killed another as he tried to surrender and beat a third, a survivor of the incident said on Monday.

The three Iraqi officials were firing from their unmarked police car at a suspect vehicle they were chasing when the Americans opened fire on them in a western suburb of the capital, Sergeant Hamza Atiya Muhsen, who said he was driving the car, said.

The incident comes two weeks after the Amnesty International savaged the US military for its repeated use of excessive force.

Lt Col Muayad Farhan, deputy head of Al Yarmuk police station where the dead officers were based, confirmed that two of his men had been shot dead by US forces. The US military said it was investigating an incident that could have been a case of “mistaken identity”.

“It appears there was a chase involved,” said Col Guy Shields, the military’s main spokesman here. “We believe two Iraqi police officers were killed.”

Sergeant Muhsen, 28, said one of his colleagues, Sergeant Mohammed Hilal Nahi, 30, was shot as he sat in the back seat of their white Hyundai car.

The third official, Second Lieutenant Alaa Ali Saleh, 24, who was uniformed, was shot as he got out of the front passenger seat and held his hands in the air, holding his US-issued yellow police badge and shouting “police, police”, said Muhsen.

“The second time he said it he was shot. He was hit by a machinegun that was firing at us right from the start of the incident,” said Mr Muhsen, adding the incident took place outside a cement factory.

A large dark stain — about a metre in width — and two smaller stains that may have been blood were visible on Sunday on the ground directly outside the factory.

A security guard employed by the US troops at a position some 300 metres from the scene, said he had witnessed the incident and said he believed that the Americans shot at the police because they thought the white Hyundai was being pursued by a marked police car.

“I saw the American soldiers kicking a man who was lying on the ground,” said the guard. He said he took Sergeant Muhsen back to his police station on Saturday evening after he was released by the Americans. Mr Muhsen confirmed this.

Muhsen, who said he was in civilian clothes but wearing the large police armband and a yellow police badge, said, after the firing had stopped, he got out of the car and held his hands up.—AFP