Five Iraqis killed as US troops open fire on truck

AMERICAN troops opened fire on a truck carrying live chickens near the tense town of Fallujah, killing five civilians in the vehicle, including a father and his two sons, relatives said yesterday.

The shooting took place at a roadblock on Tuesday night. Fallujah is the site of numerous anti-American attacks and US soldiers in the area have been on a high state of alert.

Reporters saw American troops delivering one body from an army ambulance to waiting families.

In the morgue, they saw several bodies with what appeared to be gunshot wounds.

The US military said it had no immediate information on the shootings.

In separate attacks, an American soldier was killed when a roadside bomb exploded near a US patrol by the town of Taji northwest of Baghdad, the US military said.

And a 1st Armoured Division soldier died of wounds suffered in a roadside bombing in Baghdad on Tuesday.

Their deaths bring to 153 the number of soldiers killed by hostile fire since US President George W Bush declared an end to active combat on May 1.

Also yesterday, Iraqi police in Qadisiyah detained several people suspected of involvement in an apparent rocket attack that brought down a US Black Hawk helicopter near Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit last week, killing six soldiers, a US official said.

Before dawn, nearly the entire 500-member police force of Tikrit searched door-to-door in a dusty suburb looking for weapons and insurgents.