BAGHDAD: The riots across Iraq over the weekend which caused an unknown number of Iraqi casualties reflected the heavy-handed approach taken by the US-led coalition forces in the country.

Three Iraqis were reportedly killed in Baghdad and the southeastern Iraqi city of Basra on Saturday, when US and British troops opened fire on former Iraqi soldiers who came to receive their promised payments.

The US and British troops unscrupulously opened fire on the demonstrators, who were protesting against the excessive use of force against Iraqis by coalition forces.

The southern central cities of Nassiriya and Hilla also saw mass demonstrations on Saturday and Sunday against the ill-treatment of Iraqis by coalition forces.

These and other cases of US and British heavy-handedness are almost daily occurrences in Iraq. The number of Iraqis killed daily in shootings in Baghdad has jumped to more than 30 times the number recorded pre-war, sources said.

US troops have also badly hurt members of Iraqi families, including old people, children and women, while carrying out unwarranted searches of houses and apartments under the pretext of pursuing criminals or seeking unlicensed weapons.

The Iraqi press is full of stories about such treatment, and of valuables such as money and jewellery being "stolen" during searches by coalition forces.

To humiliate Iraqis, US troops used to put black bags on the heads of those arrested, tie their hands behind their backs and force them to sit on the ground for hours in the summer heat in front of their families.

Complaints over the US forces' aggressive approach have come from many quarters, including the US-handpicked Iraqi Governing Council. The Council raised the matter with the highest US authorities, including commander of the US Central Command General John Abizaid during one of his recent visits to Iraq.

Commander of the US ground forces in Iraq Ricardo Sanchez admitted his troops were pursuing an iron-fist policy in their treatment of Iraqis.

Although he promised to abandon the policy in favour of a softer approach, things on the ground remain unchanged more than a month later.

Observers believe the brutal way US troops treat Iraqis plays into the hands of the armed men who carry out almost daily attacks on the US-led coalition forces in Iraq.

It also further antagonizes the very people who the Coalition Provisional Authority, headed by US diplomat Paul Bremer, seeks to win over heart and mind.

(Xinhua News Agency October 8, 2003)