U.S. Accused of Killing Iraqi Couple

By ALI AHMED, Associated Press Writer

FALLUJAH, Iraq - U.S. troops shelled a house after coming under fire in this hotbed of the anti-American insurgency, killing an Iraqi couple, witnesses said Wednesday.

No immediate comment was made by the U.S. military, despite telephone calls and e-mail messages to troops based in the restive town of Fallujah, 30 miles west of Baghdad.

Footage from Associated Press Television News showed a wall of collapsed concrete bricks and two walls splattered with blood where neighbors said Ahmed Hassan Farhoud, 37, and his wife Suham Omar, 28, were sitting when the house was hit by a shell. They said the couple's five children were in bed in an adjoining room and survived unhurt.

"This is democracy? These corpses?" angry neighbor Raad Majeed asked at the hospital, gesturing to the couple's remains on gurneys covered with bloody sheets. "It's a crime against humanity."

Other neighbors said it appeared someone fired at the soldiers in the suburb Tuesday night, and that the troops, on a routine raid in the district, thought the fire had come from the Hassan household.

"They just brought in their tank and fired at their house from 200 meters (yards) away," Majeed said. "What did these people do wrong?"