After the Shooting, Another Showdown

When insurgents attacked an American convoy with AK-47 rounds and a couple of grenades on a dusty highway in a Baghdad suburb this week, U.S. soldiers returned fire, chased the suspects through narrow alleyways and raided houses.

Tuesday’s clash killed two Iraqi adults and a 14-year-old and wounded four people, including two children.

When the shooting subsided, another confrontation began. A senior Iraqi army commander who arrived at the scene concluded that the Americans had fired indiscriminately at civilians and ordered his men to take the U.S. soldiers into custody. The U.S. military said the soldiers had acted in self-defense and had sought to avoid civilian casualties; U.S. commanders at the scene persuaded the Iraqis to back down.

The incident, apparently the first time a senior Iraqi commander has sought to detain U.S. soldiers, signals a potential escalation of tensions between U.S. and Iraqi forces trying to find a new equilibrium as Iraq assumes more responsibility for its security.

Both sides have starkly different interpretations of vaguely worded restrictions on the authority and movement of U.S. forces that went into effect more than three weeks ago. Those differences, and the friction they are causing in U.S.-Iraqi military relations, have been sharply underscored by the Abu Ghraib attack, which appears to be the first time U.S. soldiers have used deadly force since the new restrictions were imposed.

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