AMERICAN troops shot and killed at least two civilians selling weapons yesterday in a busy marketplace in Tikrit, the home town and traditional stronghold of Saddam Hussein.

The killings came just a day after military commanders said that troops had been ordered to take greater care to avoid civilian casualties.

People ran screaming from the street as shots rang out from American sniper positions around the market. One man was shot in the head as he unloaded several AK-47 assault rifles from a red sedan car. He slumped to the ground dead, witnesses said.

Another man died of gunshot wounds after he was taken to hospital. Hospital staff said that four more people, including a child, had been killed, but this was denied by American commanders.

They said that the American snipers had been deployed around the market after hearing that weapons and ammunition were being openly sold there every Friday.

Several weapons markets in other cities have been raided and closed down by American troops in the last three months but this was the first time such deadly force has been used. Commanders defended the shootings despite recent orders from the top coalition commander in Iraq for troops to be more discriminate in their raids for fear of turning the populace against them. Soldiers said they opened fire when the dealers saw them and tried to flee with their weapons.

“We did not give them the chance to engage,” Lieutenant-Colonel Steve Russell, who led the raid by the 4th Infantry Division, said. “If you are walking around with weapons in the town you become a combatant. The rules are very clear. They all know there is no such thing as a weapons market.” Crowds gathered to watch as American soldiers combed the scene and the dead and wounded were taken away.

Beside the red car, the dusty earth was soaked with blood where one of the men was shot dead. Piles of bullets and cartridge clips were laid out on tarpaulins behind the car. Soldiers said that they had found wires and other materials that could have been used to make explosive devices.

They also showed reporters an ID card bearing a photograph of one of the dead men. They said it indicated his links to the former regime.

Another wounded man was being treated in military custody at the hospital and a fourth suspect was thought to have escaped the cordon despite being wounded. “I think we sent out a strong message today that you cannot walk around the streets with weapons,” Colonel Russell said.

Lieutenant-General Ricardo Sanchez, the top American commander in Iraq, said a day earlier that he had ordered his forces to exercise more care during raids. “We’re at a time where we need to be more precise,” he said in Baghdad. “We need to be discriminate in our use of force so as not to alienate the people.”

Three US soldiers were wounded in separate attacks around Tikrit yesterday. Two were hospitalised after roadside bomb attacks, and a third was wounded by a mortar round but returned to duty.

Three other American solders were wounded in a roadside explosion west of Baghdad, and another died after suffering a gunshot wound while on guard duty in the capital, the US military said, but declined to say if he was killed in a hostile attack.

The assaults against US troops marked 100 days since President Bush declared an end to official hostilities in Iraq. Since then, more than 50 US soldiers have been killed in attacks, thought to be organised by local pockets of resistance owing allegiance to Saddam and other groups of Iraqis opposed to the US-led occupation.

Meanwhile in Tikrit, relatives of Saddam’s former chef said that he had turned himself in peacefully after American troops went looking for him at his home when he was out.

The chef, Major Qais Rajab, is just one of dozens of associates of the former dictator currently being detained by American troops in Tikrit.

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