nolympics submits:

Reuters Says At Least 13 Iraqis Killed by U.S. Fire in Falluja

FALLUJA, Iraq -- U.S. troops shot dead at least 13
Iraqis demonstrating against their presence at a
school in a town west of Baghdad, residents told
Reuters on Tuesday.

Angry witnesses who were burying their dead after the
shooting on Monday night in Falluja, 50 km (30 miles)
from the capital, told Reuters correspondent Edmund
Blair that dozens more people had been wounded and the
protesters were not armed.
"Our soul and our blood we will sacrifice to you
martyrs," the mourners chanted as they buried six of
the dead at a cemetery while U.S. helicopters flew
overhead.

At least one person said 17 people were killed in the
shooting. Others put the death toll at between 13 and
17.

A local Sunni Muslim cleric, Kamal Shaker Mahmoud,
said the demonstrators were unarmed and had gone to a
local school occupied by U.S. troops to ask them to
leave. The soldiers then opened fire, he said.

"It was a peaceful demonstration. They did not have
any weapons," the cleric said. "They were asking the
Americans to leave the school so they could use it."

"They opened fire on the protesters because they went
out to demonstrate," he added. "We are asking the
Americans to completely leave Iraq but first we want
them to leave residential areas."

U.S. military officials did not immediately comment.
But Qatar-based al-Jazeera satellite television quoted
American troops as saying they had come under fire
after asking the crowd to disperse and were then
forced to retaliate.