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Today: January 13, 2004 at 0:30:13 PST

Job Riots Hit Pro-U.S. City in Iraq

By NADIA ABOU EL-MAGD
ASSOCIATED PRESS

KUT, Iraq (AP) -

A second Shiite Muslim city was rocked by job riots in a sign of growing frustration in a region of Iraq considered friendly to Americans, while the U.S. death toll neared 500 after a soldier was killed in Baghdad.

The riot in Kut, 90 miles southeast of the capital, was brought under control Monday by Ukrainian troops who fired in the air after explosives were thrown at them by some demonstrators, said Iraqi police official Lt. Zafer Wedad.

Four Iraqi policemen, a Ukrainian soldier and a demonstrator were injured.

The trouble started when about 400 protesters marched for a third straight day on a government building to demand jobs. The demonstrators hurled bricks at the building and trashed a post office, Wedad said.

On Sunday, clashes during a similar demonstration in Amarah, 200 miles southeast of Baghdad, killed six protesters and wounded at least 11. On Monday, waves of protesters also rushed British troops guarding city hall before being pushed back.

The violence in the two southeastern cities underlined growing anger among Iraqis about the hardships they face under the U.S.-led occupation forces.

Although there is general dissatisfaction in most of occupied areas of Iraq, Kut and Amarah are Shiite Muslim cities, considered friendly to the Americans. Shiites are a majority in Iraq but were suppressed by Saddam Hussein's Sunni Muslim-dominated regime.

Unrest among Shiites has been simmering as their spiritual leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani, has spoken out against a U.S.-backed formula for transferring power to the Iraqis.

In a full-page newspaper advertisement Monday, al-Sistani repeated his demand that a proposed provisional legislature be elected rather than chosen by regional committees as called for under a Nov. 15 agreement between the U.S.-led coalition and the U.S.-picked Iraqi Governing Council.

But the top U.S. administrator in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, said Monday the pact was "the best way forward to return sovereignty to the Iraqi people."

Insurgent attacks against coalition forces declined to an average of 17 a day in the past week, compared with 30 a day before Saddam was captured Dec. 13, U.S. military officials said Monday. Most of the attacks are believed carried out by supporters of the ousted regime.

In the latest attack, a 1st Armored Division soldier was killed in the Iraqi capital Monday. No details were available.

The slaying raised the American death toll to 495, with most of the deaths occurring after President Bush declared an end to major hostilities on May 1.

Iraqi and American security officials also said at least two mortars exploded late Monday near the Baghdad Hotel in the center of the capital. At least one round exploded in the Tigris River and the other on the river bank, U.S. troops said. There were no casualties.

In other developments:

-The Army said U.S. soldiers shot to death seven of the estimated 40 members of an armed gang allegedly trying to steal oil Sunday from a pipeline south of Samarra.

- A roadside bomb exploded near an Army convoy in Ramadi, a town west of Baghdad. No U.S. casualties were reported, but residents said two Iraqis were killed when the Americans opened fire after the attack.

- The Danish army said results of new tests to determine whether 36 shells buried in the southern Iraqi desert contain a liquid blister agent could be expected by the end of the week. The shells, believed to be left over from the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war, were uncovered last week.

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