4:16pm UK, Tuesday April 29, 2003

US Central Command has admitted its soldiers in the Iraqi town of Falluja opened fire on a crowd, claiming they came under attack.

At least 13 Iraqis were killed as they demonstrated against US presence at a school in the town 30 miles west of Baghdad, according to some reports from local residents.

180 Iraqis coffin funeral in Falluja US shooting

Funeral procession in Fallujah

A Central Command spokeswoman said: "Members of the 1st Battalion of the 325th Airborne Infantry Regiment of the 82nd Airborne Division came upon a group of Iraqis armed with AK-47s last night.

"The Iraqis fired on them. The troops returned fire."

Angry witnesses in Falluja who were burying their dead after the shooting on Monday night said 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 US 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.

Arab satellite TV station al Jazeera said the toll could as high as 15 dead and 50 injured.

A local Sunni Muslim cleric, Kamal Shaker Mahmoud, said the demonstrators were unarmed and had gone to a local school occupied by US 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. We are asking the Americans to completely leave Iraq but first we want them to leave residential areas."