FALLUJAH, Iraq - Two Iraqis were shot dead by US troops after failing to stop at a US checkpoint in Fallujah, where soldiers also came under attack from grenades and rifle fire, officials said on Thursday.
Tension has been high in Fallujah, 50 kilometres (30 miles) west of Baghdad, since at least 16 people were shot dead by US troops last month.
The city is a Sunni Muslim stronghold where at least a small number of residents remain loyal to Saddam Hussein.
Abdullah Khalaf Ahmed, a doctor at Fallujah hospital, said two people were brought in dead around midnight (2000 GMT) on Wednesday. He said the wounds indicated they had been shot by machine-gun fire.
An official from the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA), the entity running post-war Iraq, said in Baghdad that they were apparently killed after failing to stop at a US checkpoint.
The official said US troops also came under fire in two separate incidents in Fallujah.
"One was rocket propelled grenades (RPGs) fired at a Bradley (armoured vehicle). The vehicle was disabled but there were no injuries," the official said.
"It seems the RPGs were fired from a mosque, so we didn't return fire. In the second incident, small groups of individuals fired with AK-47s at soldiers," the official said.
He said US forces went into a building where they believed the shooting had come from but found no one inside.
Earlier a US soldier said in Fallujah that US forces had come under fire while out on patrol. "We returned fire. A few of them were killed," the soldier said.
Local religious leaders worked to ease the tensions in the city after last month's killings, which happened under murky circumstances during two separate anti-US protests.
Residents and US officials suggested that there had been firing from pro-Saddam elements who had infiltrated the crowd and then shot at US forces.
Officials from the US-British coalition have repeatedly blamed unrest on elements from Saddam's now-banned Baath party, whose top members were ordered Thursday to turn themselves in to coalition troops immediately.
Iraqi political groups working with the United States to try to launch a post-Saddam government have said some Baath members have been regrouping under different names.
US troops have been coming under regular attack. On Monday, a soldier in the 3rd Infantry Division was shot in the chest at a traffic control point. The soldier was reported to be in stable condition.
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