Iraqi police open fire on jobless protesters

IRAQI police opened fire in downtown Baghdad yesterday after demonstrators demanding jobs stormed a police station and threw stones at officers, police said. At least one demonstrator was injured in the shooting.

In the northern city of Mosul, police also fired warning shots in the air to disperse hundreds of unemployed Iraqis who marched to an employment office and the city hall to demand jobs. There were no reports of injuries in the protests in Mosul, Iraq’s third-largest city.

Elsewhere, a roadside bomb exploded yesterday afternoon as a US convoy was driving by in Saddam Hussein’s hometown Tikrit. Three soldiers from the 4th Infantry Division were wounded, US officials said.

When the gunfire in Baghdad stopped after about 30 minutes, fights broke out between some demonstrators and police. The protesters said they had been promised police jobs in July, but the positions had not been given out. They claimed police were demanding bribes in return for hiring them. Salah Hasan, a policeman, said officers fired into the air when demonstrators attacked the Facilities Protection Force station. He said several officers were injured and demonstrators set two cars on fire. Police Cpl Hashim Habib Mohsen said some of the demonstrators fired on police.

Also yesterday, Iraq’s schools opened for registration and orientation, with pressing infrastructure needs and security concerns. Coalition officials had hoped to purge references to Saddam from textbooks in time for the new school year, which begins Saturday, but most of the new editions have not arrived yet. In the clash with police, Lt Mothana Ali said about 1,000 demonstrators had gone to the station demanding jobs. The police, he said, told the group they were not hiring new officers, and provocateurs incited the group to storm the building.

Ali Hamid, 21, said he and other protesters had applied for jobs but were refused even though they’d paid to get their names on a list.

“All these policemen are corrupt. We gave them money to register our names as candidates and when we returned they said we have no business being here. ,” Mr Hamid said.

Ali Aboud, a 52-year-old unemployed builder, said police had asked him to pay $100 for a job, a sum he said was out of the question.

“They promised us they would give us jobs in July. We have come every week, but still we get no answer,” Mr Aboud said.

One protester, Yassin Khudier, claimed he paid $100 to the driver of the chief of the Facilities Protection Force to get a job. “I was deceived by this person, and I want my money back,” Mr Khudier said. Chief of the east Baghdad police, Brig Khadum Abide, arrived to talk with the demonstrators and said appointments to the force would be announced on television in three days.

US troops arrived on the scene about 45 minutes after the shooting broke out.

The clash took place about three blocks north of the Palestine Hotel, home to many foreign journalists covering the US-led occupation.

Meanwhile, a Ukrainian peacekeeper was killed when a vehicle he was travelling in overturned, the first soldier from the former Soviet republic to die in Iraq, the Ukrainian Defence Ministry said.

The ministry said that preliminary information indicated the driver caused the accident by making a “risky turn”.

In northern Iraq, US soldiers arrested 34 people and seized about two dozen rocket-propelled grenades, hundreds of mortar rounds and bomb-making materials in a series of raids ending yesterday.