U.S. army denies killing man, detaining 4 in Kut

BAGHDAD /IraqiNews.com: The U.S. army in Iraq denied that its soldiers killed a man and detained four of his family during a raid on his house in central al-Kut city on Sunday, an official army source said. “The Multi-National Force (MNF) clashed today (April 26) with a suspect while raiding his house in al-Kut. There was a woman in the caught in the crossfire. The MNF medics tried to treat her wounds but she died before she could be moved to a hospital,” the source told IraqiNews.com news agency. Earlier, a local security source said a man and a woman were killed by U.S. soldiers’ fire during a raid on their house in central al-Kut city. “U.S. forces raided a house in 14 Tammuz neighborhood, central Kut, during the early hours of Sunday, killing a man and his sister-in-law and arresting four other family members,” the source told IraqiNews.com. “The two bodies were carried to al-Zahraa hospital morgue in Kut. The four arrested people were all men, including a local police officer in the rank of captain,” he added. “All the detainees are brothers and were taken to the Delta military base, (7 km) western Kut, a post taken by the Multi-National Force as headquarters,” he said. IraqiNews.com failed to get information from the U.S. side. Kut, the capital city of Wassit province, lies 180 km southeast of Baghdad. Hundreds of local residents of al-Kut staged a march protesting the killing of a man and a woman and detention of four family members by the U.S. forces on Sunday, according to a police source in Wassit. “The protesters marched through the city and gathered in front of the province’s administration building and ended in front of the house of the assaulted family,” the source said. AmR (S) 1