U.S. Forces Gun Down 3 Protestors, Iraqis Kill 3 Soldiers

"Two Iraqis were wounded but they were evacuated to the First Armored Division battalion aid station. Their condition is unknown at this moment," he added.

One of the protesters, Essam Mansur Hussein, 49, warned that they were now prepared to take up arms against the U.S. troops occupying the country, asserting that peaceful demos had become nothing but useless.

"Every day we come to protest peacefully, but it’s useless. In the coming days it will not be peaceful. They have to realize that if we have nothing to eat there will be Feyadeen (bombing) operations every day," said Hussein.

"We will blow them up one by one until they either leave or are all dead," he threatened.

The former soldiers were demanding salary arrears still unpaid since the top U.S. civil administrator in Iraq, Paul Bremer, officially dissolved the Iraqi army on May 23.

On May 26, up to former 5,000 Iraqi army officers and personnel staged a demonstration, protesting the decision.

Others in the crowd expressed anger at the continued U.S. presence in Iraq.

"Look at this army of liberation. They came saying they would liberate us from Saddam Hussein and now they kill us. They riddle us with bullets while they are proud of being a ‘democratic’ country," said Ali al Ruhaini, 46, a former junior officer.

The shooting was just the latest of a series of clashes between U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians.

Meanwhile, an Iraqi man was shot and seriously injured by U.S. troops who opened fire on the car he was driving in Fallujah Wednesday, AFP reported quoting one of the passengers.

An American woman soldier fired on the car "without any reason" shortly after noon near Fallujah’s industrial zone, said Mohammad Shihata, who was in the front seat.

Driver Abdo Baidan Hussein was seriously wounded in the chest and transferred to the intensive care unit of a local hospital, he added.

American Fatalities

In another development, three U.S. soldiers were killed Wednesday and another wounded in two separate incidents.

In Dura, on the southern fringes of the Iraqi capital, two U.S. soldiers guarding a filling station were killed in a hand grenade attack, an AFP photographer at the scene reported.

A number of U.S. military vehicles and a helicopter arrived at the scene and removed the bodies, he said, adding that the attackers had fled.

The photographer was then detained by U.S. forces who held his press pass and confiscated his camera, preventing him from taking photographs of the scene.

Another U.S. soldier was killed Wednesday and a second wounded in central Baghdad in an attack described by an American military spokesman as a drive-by shooting.

"One soldier was killed and one wounded, both are from the First Armored Division," U.S. army spokesman Sergeant First Class Brian Thomas told AFP.

"They’re treating it as a drive-by attack," he said.