[TomB]

Zijn dit de 'speciale' taktieken waar de informatieminister het over had? Enkele terroristen neerpoten tussen een betoging en geweld uitlokken?

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FALLUJAH, Iraq (AP) - U.S. soldiers opened fire on Iraqis at a demonstration after being shot at with automatic rifles by some in the crowd, a U.S. officer said Tuesday. The director of the local hospital said 13 people were killed and 75 injured.

The shooting took place about 10:30 p.m. Monday in the town of Fallujah, 30 miles west of Baghdad. The predominantly Sunni Muslim area provided strong support for Saddam Hussein's Baath Party.

Col. Arnold Bray of the 82nd Airborne Division, who gave the U.S. account of the clash, said at least seven Iraqis were hit by gunfire but could not confirm the reported deaths.

Dr. Ahmed Ghanim al-Ali, director of Fallujah General Hospital, said there were 13 dead, including three boys no older than 10. He said his medical crews were shot at when they went to retrieve the injured, which he said numbered 75 people.


The demonstrators reportedly were protesting U.S. troops' presence in Fallujah. But some townspeople said the protest was held by students aged 5 to 20 to ask the soldiers to leave the school they were staying at so classes, scheduled to resume Tuesday, could take place.

U.S. troops in the town are headquartered in the school, and some in the crowd fired on the schoolhouse, Bray said. The al-Jazeera television station, quoting local residents, said the U.S. troops opened fire after someone threw a rock at the school.

Bray said there were infiltrators in the crowd, including some who were armed and on nearby rooftops.

"Which kind of schoolboys carry AK-47s?" Bray said.

Residents said the shooting continued for at least 30 minutes.

Edtesam Shamsudeim, 37, said her 45-year-old brother died in the gunfire. She was shot in the leg and her husband was wounded.

"We were sitting in our house. When the shooting started, my husband tried to close the door to keep the children in, and he was shot," she said at the hospital, sitting in a chair with a bandaged leg, surrounded by some of her children. Their clothes stained with bloody handprints.

"Americans are criminals," she said.

U.S. Central Command in Qatar had no immediate comment on the clash.

Outside the school Tuesday afternoon, people chanted for U.S. forces to leave Iraq. "Go, go USA!" they said in Arabic, adding some English at the end: "Go away!"

Thousands of distraught people were attending funerals for the victims Tuesday, al-Jazeera reported.

The Fallujah area is familiar to the American government. The nearby Fallujah II plant, which Saddam's government said produced chlorine and hydrochloric acid for civilian use, had been cited by the CIA in the past as a possible chemical weapons facility.