US Kills Ten Iraqi Security
Personnel, Wounds Five
9-12-3
Ten Iraqi security personnel were killed and five injured by US fire
in the flashpoint town of Fallujah in the second friendly-fire
incident in the town in two days, police chief Qahtan Adnan Hamad
said.
The dead were all members of the auxiliary Facilities Protection
Services, while the injured were Iraqi policemen, he said.
The 15 had given chase in two vehicles after gunmen in a BMW opened
fire on the governorate headquarters in the town centre, district
patrol chief Lieutenant Colonel Jalal Sabri 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.
The injured policemen were all being treated in the hospital Friday,
an AFP correspondent said.
Hospital staff said several of the US rounds had hit the hospital.
Angry crowds of Fallujah residents gathered outside both the
governorate and police headquarters to protest the deaths. The
incident comes just two days after US troops killed an Iraqi policeman
and wounded another following a roadside bombing on the outskirts of
Fallujah, a Sunni Muslim bastion 50 kilometres (30 miles) west of
Baghdad.
US military spokeswoman Sergeant Amy Abbott said she was investigating
reports of an incident.
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