Iraq Mourners Bury Eight Police Officers
Gunfire erupted throughout Fallujah on Saturday and mourners shouted “America is the enemy of Allah” as angry residents gathered to bury eight Iraqi police killed when U.S. forces opened fire on their truck.
After hours of silence, the U.S. military late Friday issued a statement of condolence for the friendly fire incident. But the apology did not curb anger in Fallujah. The crowd of mourners turned on reporters who had come to witness the funerals, roughing up several of them.
“We want the Americans to leave our country because they have brought us only death,” said Taleb Hameed, a 30-year-old schoolteacher. “We are fed up with their apologies. We will continue our resistance.”
Iraqi police said eight of their officers and a Jordanian security guard were killed and nine others were wounded in the incident early Friday morning when U.S. forces fired on three vehicles carrying police. In its statement, the U.S. military confirmed that at least one person had died and said an investigation was underway.
“While conducting operations against enemy forces, U.S. soldiers were involved in an unfortunate incident near Fallujah, Iraq, in which a Jordanian hospital was damaged and at least one death of friendly personnel resulted,” the military statement said. “We deeply regret this incident and extend our sincerest condolences to the families of the deceased.”
Jordan’s official Petra news agency said Secretary of State Colin Powell called Jordan’s foreign minister expressing regret for the “sad incident,” which occurred near the Jordanian Hospital on the west side of Fallujah, located about 30 miles west of Baghdad.
In Fallujah, people gathered at the Al-Mahmoud mosque for burial ceremonies for the Iraqi police who died. Eight flag-draped coffins were carried into the Sunni Muslim mosque for religious rites before being turned over to family members for interment.
Some in the crowd shouted, “There is no God but Allah. America is the enemy of Allah.” Police and members of the Fallujah Protection Force fired their weapons into the air, marking the return of their fallen comrades.
Iman Fawzi Namiq exhorted the faithful to stop shooting.
“Save your bullets for the chests of the enemy,” he said through loudspeakers at the mosque.
Tribal leaders and city dignitaries called for a one-day general strike on Sunday and a three-day period of mourning to begin the same day.
A black banner was strung above the one-story Fallujah Protection Force headquarters building and carried the names of the eight dead.
“The Fallujah Protection Force mourns the martyrdom of its members who have been killed at the hands of American forces,” the banner also read.
The force is a U.S.-trained paramilitary group that patrols the greater Fallujah region against crime and sabotage.
U.S. troops directing reconstruction projects from the Fallujah mayor’s office were not there Saturday. Police at the mayor’s office said the Americans’ absence was understandable given Friday’s events.
Many Iraqis claim friends and relatives have been shot and killed when they failed to stop at U.S. checkpoints in Baghdad. But Friday’s shooting was the most serious reported friendly fire incident involving U.S. forces and the growing U.S.-sponsored Iraqi police, militia and military.
Iraqi police said the incident began about 1:30 a.m. Friday.
About 25 uniformed Iraqi policemen in two pickup trucks and a sedan were chasing a white BMW known to have been used by highway bandits near Fallujah, said Asem Mohammed, a police sergeant who was among the wounded. Two of the vehicles pursuing the bandits were painted in the blue and white colors of the Iraqi police, while the pickup truck with the gun mounted on it was white.
As the chase neared a checkpoint near the Jordanian Hospital, the police turned around after losing sight of their quarry, and a nearby American patrol opened fire, Mohammed said.
“We were chasing a white BMW with bandits. We turned around in front of Jordanian Hospital and some American forces started shooting at us,” Mohammed said.
“We shouted ‘We are police. We are police.’ Then we drove off the road into a field,” Arkan Adnan Ahmed, 19, said at Fallujah Hospital, where he was being treated for a shoulder wound. “They started shooting from all sides.”
Ahmed, who was driving one of the Iraqi police cars, said the sudden appearance of the unmarked pickup truck with the mounted machine gun may have prompted the Americans to begin firing. Members of the Jordanian armed forces guarding the hospital apparently also opened fire when the Americans began shooting, catching the Iraqi police in a crossfire.
Ahmed said the shooting lasted about 45 minutes and all the Iraqi dead were in the armed pickup truck.
An Associated Press reporter who saw some of the dead Iraqis said they were in uniform – a blue shirt with insignia. Dr. Dial Jumaili, who came to treat the wounded, said there were eight dead policemen. Nine others were wounded, two seriously, Jumaili said.
Shell casings left behind and examined by an AP reporter suggested the Iraqis did not fire a shot. None of the AK-47 shell casings used by Iraqi police forces were on the ground. All the casings were those of weapons used by U.S. forces.
About an hour after the Fallujah shooting and 30 miles to the west, two U.S. soldiers were killed and seven others were wounded in a pre-dawn raid in the town of Ramadi, the American military said.
In Saddam’s hometown of Tikrit on Saturday, one Iraqi was killed and two were wounded when guerrillas fired a rocket-propelled grenade at a U.S. Army patrol. The shot missed the Americans but hit a garbage truck.
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Associated Press reporters Sameer N. Yacoub in Baghdad and Patrick Quinn in Fallujah contributed to this report.