Iraqis stone British troops in jobs demo
Waves of protesting Iraqis marched against British soldiers, hurling stones and setting off homemade explosives in the southeastern city of Amarah today, a day after clashes killed six protesters and wounded at least 11.
Screaming protesters – some armed with sticks and shovels – rushed in waves against British troops guarding the city hall. The British drove the crowd back from the compound, which also houses the US-led occupation force and the 1st Battalion of Britain’s Light Infantry.
Booms and flashes of light exploded in the crowd, believed to be from homemade bombs of tin cans packed with explosives and nails and lit with candlewicks.
Soldiers blocked roads and periodically pushed demonstrators back, sometimes with batons, sometimes marching in unison behind riot shields and, against younger protesters, simply shoving them with their hands.
“Yesterday there were more adults with much more violent intent,” said British Major Johnny Bowron. We are trying to permit a peaceful protest but prevent loss of life or damage to property.”
Tensions in Amarah, 200 miles southeast of Baghdad, erupted on Saturday after hundreds of Iraqis gathered to protest that authorities had not kept a promise to give them jobs.
They stoned the town hall, shattering windows. Shots rang out, makeshift bombs were thrown and the British and Iraqi police opened fire. Hospital officials said six people were killed. The British put the death toll at five – with no casualties among soldiers or police.
Before the US invasion of Iraq, Saddam’s security forces were the biggest employer in the city of 400,000.
Today, demonstrators sent a representative to talk to British and Iraqi officials, who promised them 8,000 jobs, according to witnesses. But protesters said a similar promise made weeks before had not been fulfilled and the clash ensued. No Iraqi police were visible at the scene today.
Meanwhile, Iraq’s top Shiite Muslim cleric hardened his opposition to a US plan to select a provisional national assembly – a possible further complication in American efforts to hand over power to Iraqis by July 1.
Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani demanded the assembly be directly elected – saying a body chosen by local caucuses, as foreseen by the Americans, will not have legitimacy. “This will, in turn, give rise to new problems and the political and security situation will deteriorate,” he said in a statement released by his office.
Sistani also demanded the assembly approve a draft constitution and proposed agreements governing the continued presence of US and other coalition troops in Iraq beyond July 1. Sistani’s views are widely respected by Iraqi Shiites, and his opposition forced the Americans to change their transition plans once already.
Elsewhere, US troops in Tikrit arrested a Saddam loyalist suspected in last month’s shooting of an American soldier who was saved by his flak jacket. The shot soldier was among the troops arresting the man, an alleged member of Saddam’s Fedayeen paramilitary movement.
In the northern city of Mosul, four mortar shells exploded at the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan office earlier today, damaging the building but causing no injuries, according to party officials who were there at the time.
Two other explosions occurred near the US-led coalition office in the northern oil city of Kirkuk, but police said they appeared to be percussion bombs “aimed at terrorising.”
Also today, authorities said the body of an Iraqi working with the US-led coalition was found in the southern city of Basra, along with another man not associated with the coalition. Insurgents opposed to the US-led occupation have targeted soldiers as well as civilians and Iraqi police working with the occupiers.
