BAGHDAD - US soldiers mistakenly opened fire on Iraqi police and civilians after an ambush south of Baghdad yesterday, killing five people.

Bodies of victims wait be taken away for burial outside Yarmouk hospital in Baghdad, Sunday, Jan. 9, 2005. At least five Iraqis, including two policemen and three civilians, were killed the previous night when U.S. troops opened fire after their convoy was struck by a roadside bomb at a checkpoint south of Baghdad, police said. (AP Photo/Mohammed Uraibi)

The incident came less than 24 hours after a mis-aimed US bomb was dropped on a home in the north of the country, killing another five Iraqis.

Combined, the incidents will feed calls that US forces set a date for their withdrawal, a demand made by several Iraqi political factions during the run-up to the January 30 elections.

On Saturday the conservative Sunni organisation, the Association of Muslim Scholars, joined the calls after meeting US representatives to demand a timetable for withdrawal. The group was reported to have said it would abandon its election boycott in return for a departure date for US forces.

However, despite the rhetoric about withdrawal, a senior US official said last week that representatives of Iraqi political groups in regular contact with the embassy were not pushing for a departure date, while Iyad Allawi, prime minister, argues that most Iraqis support the presence of foreign forces.

According to Iraqi police, the soldiers shot dead two police and two civilians after their convoy was hit by a roadside bomb in the town of Yusufiya, while a fifth Iraqi died of a heart attack at the scene.

The US military did not have information on the shooting of civilians, but reported one soldier killed by a roadside bomb in or near Baghdad.

Iraqis say US soldiers, fearing suicide car bombers, are quick to shoot at civilian vehicles, but the incidents often go unreported.

Meanwhile, seven Ukrainian soldiers and an eighth from Kazakhstan were killed in a blast that occurred when they were loading an unexploded bomb.

© Copyright The Financial Times Ltd 2005

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