While reports differ on the number injured, Reuters reports that the US troops acted on a tip off, given to the Iraqi police force and then staked out the men until they were caught selling arms.

So perhaps opening fire first was a little extreme but surely the selling of arms can't be compatible with creating a peaceful iraq - albeit neither is opening fire in the streets by an occupying force.

Yet surely that the iraqi police force were the ones with the intelliegnce however is a good sign that at least some degree of order is beginning to be restored.

The situation isn't ideal and its the leadership of these troops, not the troops themselves that are at fault. They shouldn't be in there in the first place, but when you hear of american agression you can hardly be surprised, how exactly would you act if you were an US soldier and had suffered the casualties so far seen since the end of offical war?

The story was sadly not my own, and I pressed publish before including the all important line:

THIS IS A TRANSLATION OF THE RUSSIAN REPORT OF THIS STORY.

The Americans are still meeting armed resistance because clearly many Iraqis do not accept them as "liberators". And when even US generals are admitting that heavy-handed search operations by American troops have alienated Iraqis, it is clear that resistance is likely to continue. The May 1 declaration by Bush that major combat was over was characteristically arrogant and premature.
Despite the public relations waffle, many US troops went to Iraq in the first place not bothering to conceal their hatred and contempt for Iraqis - not just for Saddam Hussein or the Ba'athist leadership. The fact that US troops are still being killed long after the war's official end is not going to soften their feelings any, and US trigger fingers are not going to be any less restrained.

Dow Jones has just published this piece in the last hour:

"U.S. snipers killed two men and wounded two others in a raid on a weapons market in Tikrit Friday, witnesses and military officials said.

Women ran screaming as they heard the shots and saw a man who was unloading AK-47 assault rifles from the trunk of a red sedan fall to the ground, according to a witness.

U.S. forces had positioned snipers around the market after hearing that weapons and ammunition were sold there every Friday, said Lt. Col. Steve Russell, whose 22nd Infantry Regiment, 1st Battalion, executed the operation.

"We didn't give them a chance to engage us. If you walk around with weapons in a city, you become a combatant. The rules are very clear," Russel said.

Dr. Mohammed al-Jubori, chief physician at the Tikrit Teaching Hospital, said three people were killed. He said two died in the market and a third, shot in the head, died while being treated at the hospital. He said five were wounded, including a 10-year-old boy shot in the leg and hit in the head with shrapnel."

This is how AFP reported it:

"Five Iraqi men and a child were killed by US gunfire early Friday in a street market in the town of Tikrit, the director of the main hospital in Saddam Hussein's hometown north of Baghdad told AFP.

However, a US military spokesman disputed the account of locals, saying only two arms dealers had been killed and another two wounded.

Dr. Salah al-Dulaimi told AFP US soldiers opened fire at five arms sellers who were test-firing Kalashnikov assault rifles for customers at 8:30 am (0430 GMT), killing them.

A child who was in the marketplace of the town, 175 kilometers (110 miles) north of Baghdad, was also fatally shot, and a woman was wounded, he said.

But Lieutenant Colonel Bill MacDonald, of the 4th Infantry Division, assigned to Tikrit, gave a different version of events.

"Soldiers of 4th ID sent out an observation patrol to monitor a location where suspected former regime loyalists were trafficking illegal arms. At 7:30 am (0330 GMT), a team observed four men illegally trafficking weapons. The team engaged the four men, two were wounded, two were killed," MacDonald said."

... that makes this so telling ...

A bunch of heavily armed invaders claiming the lawful[sic] right to shoot on site arms dealers - and from a country that sells more arms than any other on earth in history.

And this without even mention of the motivations of the trigger happy neurotic scared rabbit grunt at the hard end of a blatent and racist resource grabbing policy.

Another zero tolerance zone from the zero empathy brigade.

usa number 1

gonna get me some scalps

ye ha

Oh and remember ... resistance is terrorism.

The Iraqis attacking US (and British) troops are actually fighting for all of us. Because the more difficulties the occupiers have, the more likely they are to think twice about invading other countries. The attacks, although relative pinpricks in military terms, show that not all Iraqis accept foreign occupation and the hit-and-run ambushes have shown that, for all their vast technological superiority, the Americans are vulnerable. Iraq isn't proving to be an unalloyed triumph even for Bush, and Blair has been left politically vulnerable.