Deputy PM Jemeili claims protesters attacked soldiers An Iraqiya List spokesperson has denied claims by Iraq’s Deputy Prime Minister Hussein Shahrstani regarding the number of dead during protests in Fallujah last Friday, after unarmed civilians were reportedly shot by soldiers.
Speaking after an emergency parliamentary session to discuss the incident, member of parliament Salman Jemeili insisted that all seven deceased were peaceful demonstrators, denying Shahrstani’s earlier claims that only three civilians had been killed, alongside two al-Qaeda militants. Shahrstani alleged that two army soldiers were shot by demonstrators.
\"Mr Shahrstani mixed three separate incidents together,” Jemeili said. “The first incident saw seven demonstrators killed and another 56 injured after they were shot by army soldiers.”
“The second incident took place five kilometres away from the first incident, without any army casualties. The third one was a terrorist attack that targeted an army unit – it had no links with the demonstration,\" Jemeili claimed.
Seven anti-government protesters, reportedly shot by Iraqi troops, were buried on Saturday following a mass rally on Friday which called for Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to leave office. The clampdown has sharpened tensions amid weeks of increasingly fraught demonstrations.
The deaths in the predominantly Sunni town of Fallujah, west of Baghdad, were the first since protests began in December, and came as tens of thousands rallied in Sunni areas, railing against alleged sectarianism by Shiite-led authorities.
While some Shiite clerics gave cross-sectarian support to the protests, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki blamed demonstrators and insisted soldiers had been \"attacked.\"
The deaths have raised tensions in a country that only relatively recently emerged from brutal sectarian bloodshed that left tens of thousands dead between 2005 to 2008.
Friday\'s rally had been moving from central to eastern Fallujah, 60 kilometers west of the Iraqi capital, when it was blocked off by soldiers, police chief Nasser Awad said.
Protesters began throwing bottles of water at the troops, who then opened fire.
Seven demonstrators were killed, all of them from gunshot wounds, a doctor at Fallujah hospital confirmed. 60 others were wounded, mostly by gunfire.
The Defence Ministry has promised to launch an investigation into the killings.