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GIs Mistakenly Shoot Iraq Police Officers

Posted on: Friday, 12 September 2003, 06:00 CDT

U.S. soldiers mistakenly opened fire Friday on Iraqi police officers chasing highway bandits near an American checkpoint in a small town west of Fallujah, witnesses said.

The U.S. military in Baghdad said it had no information on the incident.

In the confusion after the shooting, which was near the Jordanian Hospital just outside Fallujah, 30 miles west of Baghdad, 12 policemen were taken inside the nearby U.S. base. Whether they were killed or injured was not clear. Family members gathered at the base gate waiting for news. Five other policemen were taken to a hospital with injuries.

Arab satellite television broadcasters were reporting between 10 and 17 policemen killed.

There were other unconfirmed reports of violence in the region Friday after a message carrying the name of Saddam Hussein appeared on at least one building in Fallujah.

The message praised the people of the city for their resistance to the American occupation and named it capital of al-Anbar province. The nearby city of Ramadi, west of Fallujah, is the capital of the Sunni dominated al-Anbar province.

Fallujah police were chasing a white BMW without license plates that they identified as one used by highway bandits on the road connecting Baghdad with the Jordanian border. The officers chasing the four men in the BMW were in pickup trucks.

U.S. Army troops manning a checkpoint on a road leading to the resort village of Saddamiyat al-fallujah, formerly used by senior officials of the Saddam regime, opened fire on the BMW and the trucks when they did not stop.

Witnesses initially said 11 police officers in the pursuing vehicles and all four men in the car were killed in the hail of fire.

On Thursday, attackers fired rocket-propelled grenades at a U.S. military convoy about 18 miles west of Fallujah, touching off an intense firefight that left at least one American soldier wounded, the military said.

Tanks and other vehicles from the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment came under attack, the military said.

Other "U.S. forces responding to the scene came under fire and returned fire at houses nearby," U.S. Army Capt. Jeff Fitzgibbons said.

There was no information regarding casualties among attackers. Two U.S. military trucks were also destroyed during the fighting along Highway 10, he said.

The Fallujah region has been one of the most dangerous for U.S. soldiers. Support for ousted dictator Saddam runs strongest in the region.

Associated Press Television News pictures showed a burning tank transport truck, a burning 5-ton truck and at least one burning Humvee.

Kanaan Ali Ibrahim, a witness, said the convoy was moving from Habaniya to Ramadi when Iraqi "mujahedeen" ambushed it with rocket-propelled grenades.

A small crowd gathered at the scene of the attack and began shouting jubilantly "Allahu Akbar," or God is great, and "Oh, Iraq, we sacrifice our lives and blood for you."

Earlier Thursday, three U.S. soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division were injured when guerillas fired rocket-propelled grenades and shot small arms at a military convoy in Mosul, northern Iraq, the military said.

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