Naseer Al-Nahr, Arab News Staff

BAGHDAD, 21 December 2003 — Iraqi police said US troops mistakenly shot dead three of their officers near the northern city of Kirkuk as Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar of Spain paid an unannounced pre-Christmas visit yesterday to the Spanish military contingent here.

Meanwhile, a senior US officer said that four Iraqis died and a number of US troops were wounded during a Baghdad demonstration in support of captured dictator Saddam Hussein five days ago.

Aznar spent less than five hours at the base for 1,300 Spanish soldiers in Diwaniya, south of the capital, where he had lunch with the troops, a military spokesman said.

The spokesman, Fermino Sanabria, said Aznar then flew back to Spain.

In another surprise visit, Portuguese Interior Minister Antonio Figueiredo Lopes visited Nassiriyah in southern Iraq yesterday to meet 128 gendarmes based there, the national Lusa news agency said.

In a press conference in Diwaniya, 160 kilometers (100 miles) south of Baghdad, Aznar said he wanted to support the Spanish soldiers and their allies in “their struggle for a just cause, one of liberty, democracy and respect for international law.”

But his visit failed to impress opposition politicians back home, who accused Aznar of imitating US President George W. Bush, who made a brief stop in Baghdad to mark Thanksgiving in November.

An ambush last month killed seven intelligence agents who were part of the Spanish force here.

The US military said this week that attacks on coalition soldiers are down but Iraqi civilians and members of the Iraqi security forces are being increasingly targeted by guerrillas opposed to the US-led coalition.

Yesterday, three more policemen died but this time the killers were American, Iraqi police said.

The policemen, mistakenly taken for guerrillas, were killed overnight by US troops about 90 kilometers (60 miles) south of Kirkuk in northern Iraq, police said.

“The police had a roadblock on the road linking Kirkuk and Baghdad. An American patrol arrived around 0200 (2300 GMT Friday) and opened fire, taking the police to be guerrillas,” said 2nd Lt. Salam Zankana.

His dead colleagues were identified as Ahmed Hussein, Abdelrahman Saleh and Saqr Naji Hussein.

The US Army said it was investigating the incident.

In Baghdad, the commander of the 1st Armored Division told reporters that four Iraqis died, seven were hurt and 23 captured during an “illegal” demonstration in Baghdad on Dec. 15.

Brig. Gen. Mark Hertling said there had been an exchange of fire and some US soldiers were also wounded.

He could not say whether US troops had killed the four Iraqis.

Abdel Salam Al-Kubeissi, an official representing Sunni religious leaders, said the Americans “opened fire indiscriminately.”

Another Iraqi was wounded Friday night when US troops in the Ramadi area opened fire on a speeding vehicle which refused to stop at their checkpoint, US Central Command said.

Soldiers first fired warning shots, the statement said. The incident came almost one week after US forces captured fugitive strongman Saddam hiding down a hole near his hometown of Tikrit.

Military intelligence said the man who led them to nab Saddam was one of his top aides.

“He was someone I would call his right arm,” Maj. Stan Murphy, the head of intelligence for the 4th Infantry Division’s First Brigade in Tikrit, said Friday of the man who led US troops to Saddam’s hide-out on Dec. 13.

Murphy said the informant was in detention, ruling out the possibility that he would receive any of the $25 million bounty that the United States had placed on Saddam’s head. “He is a bad man and should rot in jail,” the major said.

The man, whose name the military will not reveal, was a longtime aide of Saddam and hailed from one of five major tribes in a 20-kilometer stretch around Tikrit.

In addition to helping Saddam elude the Americans for about eight months, the man, along with four or five other Iraqis, helped the fugitive dictator implement his orders to the resistance, finance the insurgency and provide combatants with weaponry, according to Murphy.

There were four to nine tiers of the resistance, Murphy said.

— Additional input from agencies