Fallujah, Iraq ? Angry mourners swarmed this central Iraqi city Saturday, firing into the air, attacking journalists and cursing the American occupation as they followed the flag-draped coffins of eight Iraqi police killed in a friendly fire incident involving U.S. troops.

The U.S. military apologized Saturday for the shooting that killed nine people — the eight Iraqis and a Jordanian guard — and badly damaged a hospital. U.S. troops only opened fire after they were attacked “by unknown forces,” the military said.

But the explanation did not defuse the anger washing over Fallujah, a city of 200,000 in Iraq’s most troubled region. The shooting was the worst case of friendly fire since major hostilities in Iraq were declared over May 1, and it served to intensify talk here of the heavy-handedness of American troops.

“We have had enough of the Americans killing us and then just saying ‘Oh, sorry!”‘ said Salam Mohammed, 60, a Fallujah resident and a relative of some of the victims.

“We want the Americans to leave our country because they have brought us only death,” said Taleb Hameed, a 30-year-old schoolteacher. “We are fed up with their apologies. We will continue our resistance.”

On Saturday afternoon, the eight coffins were carried into a mosque for religious rites before they were given to family members for burial. Outside, gunshots erupted throughout Fallujah as mourners fired into the air. Some in the crowd chanted: “There is no God but Allah, and America is the enemy of Allah.”

In an ominous message, Fawzi Namiq, the mosque’s imam, said through loudspeakers: “Save your bullets for the chests of the enemy.”

In the streets, angry residents roughed up reporters who came to witness the ceremony. A clergyman grabbed a one armed man and prevented him from shooting at a departing Associated Press Television News car as it sped from the city. A CNN cameraman was beaten and an Associated Press photographer was hit in the face.

The U.S. military issued an apology for the shooting and said an investigation had begun. However, military spokesman Lt. Col. George Krivo said the Americans only fired after they were “attacked from a truck by unknown forces.”

“Coalition forces,” he said, “immediately returned fire and the subsequent engagement lasted approximately three hours. Regrettably during the incident extensive damage was done to the (Jordanian) hospital and several security personnel were killed, including eight Iraqis and one Jordanian national.”

The military, he said, wished “to express our deepest regret for this incident to the families who have lost loved ones and express our sincerest condolences.”

Mistaken attack

The shootout began in the early-morning hours Friday as several Iraqi police vehicles approached a U.S. checkpoint near the Jordanian military hospital here.

Iraqi policemen who survived recounted from their hospital beds Saturday how they begged the American soldiers to stop shooting, screaming in Arabic and English that they were police. The Americans kept firing volley after volley, they said. The fusillade raged for a half hour as more men died and others groaned in pain from their wounds, they said.

At the Fallujah General Hospital, policeman Alaa Hashem, 22, recounted how the bodies of two colleagues fell on him, something he said may have saved his life.

Hashem was in a pickup truck with 10 other policemen when their headquarters radioed them. They were ordered to provide backup to policemen traveling in another pickup and a sedan. The two vehicles were pursuing a white BMW suspected of involvement in robberies on the road between Baghdad and the Jordanian border.

“The BMW got away before we could join the chase,” said Hashem, who sustained injuries to his left thigh and back. “When the two cars turned around to head back to Fallujah, we joined them and we led the way back when we suddenly came under fire.”

Hashem said he heard the Americans shout “stop!” but his car veered off the road. For the next 30 minutes, he said, the Americans kept firing at the total of 25 policemen in the three vehicles.

“We shouted and shouted that we are from the police, but they kept firing from all directions. It was like an ambush,” he said.

Another injured policeman, Assem Mohammed, 23, gave an account that corroborated Hashem’s story except he did not recall hearing the Americans shout “stop.”

“We carry out our duty and that’s what we get?” said Mohammed, who was shot in his right leg.

Scarred relations

Relations between Fallujah’s residents and U.S. forces in the area have been on a knife’s edge since shortly after the city was captured in April. Friday’s killings were certain to inflame smoldering hatred of the American occupation.

For the rest of Iraq, the incident was likely to stoke resentment of U.S. troops already seen by some as trigger-happy.

Fallujah is part of the so-called Sunni triangle — a vast swath of land astride the Tigris and the Euphrates west and north of Baghdad — where the mainly Sunni Muslim population gave deposed dictator Saddam Hussein his strongest base of support during his 23-year rule.

U.S. troops in the city came under almost daily attack for two months after a late April incident when soldiers opened fire on protesters, killing 18 and wounding 78. The Americans said they were fired at first.

The Americans pulled out of their permanent positions in the city in mid-July, leaving the local police in charge of security. The move dramatically reduced the number of attacks inside the city, but resentment of the Americans continued to simmer.