Army says it mistook guards for insurgents

BAGHDAD - The target was in the house. U.S. forces made their move. But as they neared the building in a lush farming area south of Baghdad, gunmen emerged from the dark.

When the shooting ended, two U.S.-allied civilian security guards were dead, along with a companion apparently linked to the security force.

The U.S. Army said yesterday it appeared that the Iraqi guards had left their assigned checkpoint in the village of Jarf Sakhr and been mistaken for insurgents.

It was the second case in a week of civilian guards being killed by U.S. forces in the area, and the third such case this month in Iraq, where the security corps' cooperation with U.S. and Iraqi troops is key to maintaining recent security gains.

Since the latest shooting, some of the guards, who are known as Sons of Iraq or concerned local citizens, have abandoned their checkpoints to protest what they consider careless U.S. behavior.

Col. Tom James of the U.S. Army's Fourth Brigade, Third Infantry Division said the Friday shooting could have been prevented had the civilian guards followed rules outlined in contracts they signed with the military.

Those rules include remaining at checkpoints and not taking offensive action that could cause soldiers to mistake them for insurgents, he said.

"We've very strict in our approach to the Sons of Iraq, what they can and cannot do, how they have to be in their positions and be static," he said. "A situation like this occurs because they are not following those particular rules."

But James' description underscored the difficulty of conducting missions in volatile regions with a mix of uniformed and non-uniformed forces that operate in close proximity but are unable to communicate.

Sons of Iraq members, who are on the U.S. military payroll, are not in direct contact with U.S. forces and are not told of planned operations.

That means if they see figures moving in the distance in the night, they have no way to know if they are friend or foe until the figures get close to their checkpoints.

With attacks on their checkpoints increasing dramatically since Osama bin Laden publicly condemned the volunteers in December, leaders say they have reason to be edgy.

The U.S. military says its forces have no choice but to fire if they perceive a threat or come under fire themselves.

"It's a very, very complex environment out there," said Navy Rear Adm. Gregory Smith, a military spokesman.

James said U.S. forces had planned to capture a suspected al-Qaeda in Iraq insurgent Friday and had tracked him to the house about 550 yards from a Sons of Iraq checkpoint. He said the troops were moving toward the house when they encountered three gunmen.

After the gun battle, the Americans continued toward the house, where they captured two suspected insurgents. Only later did they learn that two of the dead were registered Sons of Iraq foot soldiers who had been approved for security work after passing U.S. background checks, James said. The third was a friend of a local sheikh who oversees the Sons of Iraq program in the area.

A female suicide

bomber struck a Shiite neighborhood yesterday in Baghdad, detonating her explosives as soldiers fired three rounds at her and she staggered to a nearby shop.

Doctors and a police

officer said four people were killed and 12 wounded. The U.S. military said that the only death was the bomber's and that two Iraqi soldiers had been wounded.

Two U.S. soldiers

were killed yesterday by small-arms fire in the volatile Diyala province, northeast of Baghdad. The deaths announced by the U.S. military raised to 3,963 the number of service members who have died since the Iraq war started in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

- Associated Press