FALLUJAH, Sept 12: Ten Iraqi security personnel and a Jordanian guard were killed by US “friendly fire” here early Friday as this flashpoint erupted in a frenzy of violence, officials and witnesses said.
Two American soldiers were also killed and 11 wounded in other attacks on Friday in the region west of Baghdad where two Iraqis also died, and a third was hurt after his car failed to stop at a US checkpoint late Thursday.
While violence flared again in and near Fallujah, a move by US forces to crack down on unauthorized armed patrols by Iraqi militia in the central city of Najaf appeared to pass its first major test at the weekly prayers.
No armed militia were seen on the streets of Najaf, but only a few badged security guards, some police and Polish troops, while negotiations continued with an anti-US militant bent on keeping his forces’ weapons.
The friendly fire shooting in Fallujah shortly after midnight Thursday was one of the most serious incidents in the city, known for its support of ousted leader Saddam Hussein’s Sunni-dominated regime.
Angry residents gathered outside the governor’s office and police headquarters to protest the deaths, which came two days after an Iraqi policeman was killed and another wounded when US troops opened fire in response to a bomb attack.
US military spokesmen would confirm only that one soldier and five “neutrals” had been wounded in the latest shooting in the city that has seen persistent clashes since US-led forces overthrew Saddam in April. But Fallujah police chief Qahtan Adnan Hamad said 10 members of the locally created protection force were killed and five Iraqi policemen wounded by US fire.
The 15 had given chase in two vehicles after gunmen in a BMW opened fire on the governor’s headquarters in the town centre, district patrol chief said.
When they reached the Jordanian Red Crescent hospital to the north of the town, they ran into US soldiers who opened fire on them, he said. Hospital staff said several of the US rounds hit the hospital.
The gunfire riddled the Jordanian hospital in Fallujah with bullet and shell holes, killing the Jordanian bodyguard of the facility’s director and wounding five Jordanians and an Iraqi in the administrative wing, an officer said.
The US military later said that two US soldiers had been killed and seven wounded in a pre-dawn firefight after a raid on the hotspot western Iraqi town of Ramadi 110km west of Baghdad.
Three US soldiers were wounded, one of them seriously, when a US Humvee was set ablaze by a rocket-propelled grenade outside Fallujah around Friday noon, witnesses and officials said. Three hours later another soldier was hurt in a blast on the same road.
US soldiers killed two Iraqis and wounded a third Thursday night after their car failed to stop at a checkpoint east of Fallujah, according to witness Mohsen Ali.
An Iraqi civilian was killed and another wounded Friday by US gunfire in the northern oil center of Kirkuk after an American position came under attack by mortar fire and rocket-propelled grenades, medical officials there said.
In Najaf, thousands of Shias flocked to shrines around the city for the main weekly Muslim prayers as discussions continued on US orders banning unauthorized Iraqis from carrying weapons on the street.
The lack of militia in the streets contrasted sharply with the heavy security presence the week before for the first Friday prayers since a massive car bomb killed 83 people, including a revered religious leader.
Firebrand anti-US cleric Moqtada Sadr, whose Mehdi Army militia has threatened to defy the Americans, made no direct challenge to the US weapons ban order but said Iraqis must assure their own security.
“The Americans do not have the right to take arms from the guards,” he said in his sermon in the Najaf suburb of Kufah. “They must let Iraqis work to assume security in Iraq because they have not managed to do it.”—AFP