Naseer Al-Nahr • Arab News Staff

BAGHDAD, 12 August 2003 — US soldiers killed two Iraqi policemen by mistake in Baghdad on Saturday while one of their own was killed and two others wounded in a grenade attack in northern Iraq on Sunday.

An eyewitness said the Americans mistook an Iraqi policeman for an attacker and shot him dead, killed another as he tried to surrender and beat up a third. The three Iraqi officers were firing from their unmarked police car at a suspect vehicle they were chasing when the Americans opened fire on them in a western suburb of the capital.

The incident comes two weeks after human rights watchdog Amnesty International savaged the US military for its repeated use of excessive force in Iraq.

Lt. Col. Muayad Farhan, deputy head of Al-Yarmuk police station where the dead officers were based, confirmed that two of his men had been shot dead by occupation forces.

The US military said it was investigating the incident which could have been a case of “mistaken identity.”

Late on Sunday, American soldiers from the 4th Infantry Division came under a grenade attack in front of the police station they were guarding in Baqouba, 70 km (45 miles) north of Baghdad. A soldier was killed and two were wounded, Maj. Mark Solomons said. The death brought to 57 the number of US troops killed in action since May 1, when US President George W. Bush declared major combat over.

In eastern Iraq, US soldiers piled out of Black Hawk helicopters in a failed raid yesterday on a remote village near the Iranian border where American forces believed one of Iraq’s top fugitives was plotting guerrilla attacks on US forces.