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According to al-Jazeera, the protest was peaceful
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BAGHDAD,
April 29, (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) –Qatar-based satellite
channel Al-Jazeera television said Tuesday, April 29, that 15 Iraqis
were killed and about 50 wounded overnight when U.S. occupation forces
opened fire on a crowd of demonstrators against the U.S. military
presence in the town of Falluja, 30 miles west of Baghdad.
The
report followed an initial one that ten people were killed and 70
wounded when the crowd staged a peaceful demonstration chanting calls
for the U.S. forces to leave Iraq, the news network Baghdad
correspondent, speaking on air by telephone.
But
the protests turned bloody when the U.S. forces opened random fire after
someone in the crowd threw a stone at the school where they are
stationed into, al-Jazeera correspondent said.
He
added a group, numbering up to 200, had finished Muslim evening prayers
at a mosque and answered a call by preachers to protest against the
continued presence of U.S. troops in Iraq.
The
protestors also called on the U.S. forces to leave a school they
stationed into in order for students to resume their studies, added the
correspondent.
He
said he did not have an exact account of the injured who were being
treated at five different hospitals in Falluja.
The
shooting came just hours after U.S. President George W. Bush promised
the United States would promote democracy in Iraq.
"It'll
be a hard journey, but every step of the way, Iraq will have a steady
friend in the American people," Bush told about 600 Arab-Americans
at the Ford Community and Performing Arts Center in Dearborn, a suburb
of Detroit.
U.S.
Central Command in Qatar said it had no information and U.S. Army
commanders in Baghdad were unavailable to comment, according to Reuters.
U.S.
troops were [allegedly] welcomed for overthrowing Saddam Hussein but
many Iraqis are now anxious for them to go home, it added.
The
U.S. forces were widely slammed by the Iraqi people for turning a blind
eye over the large acts of looting and thievery all of the Iraqi areas
descended into following their invasion and the overthrow of Saddam.
There
were also waves of massive demonstrations that broke out in various
districts of the country with higher calls for ending the occupation and
the precipitous formation of a national government.
In
one demonstration, tens of thousands of Iraqis, both Sunnis and Shiites,
joined hands demanding
an end to the Anglo-American occupation of their country with chants
"No to Saddam, No to Bush, Yes to Islam".
In
another related development, the body of a soldier found the day after a
convoy was ambushed in southern Iraq was identified as Army Spc. Edward
John Anguiano, the last missing soldier in Iraq.
"What
we heard is that he was ambushed," said Vicente Anguiano Sr., 72.
"They found his truck, the one he drove, and it had been stripped
— tires and everything. They found a body near the truck."
Anguiano,
24, was in the 3rd Infantry Combat Support Battalion out of Fort
Stewart, Ga. He was traveling with the 507th Maintenance Company, a unit
from Fort Bliss in El Paso, when it was attacked on March 23. Nine
soldiers were killed and six, all with the 507th, were taken prisoner.
