Baghdad - Two brothers, one of them a policeman, were fatally shot on Monday in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, police said. Police said the pair were gunned down in the district of al-Arabi, in eastern Mosul, some 400 kilometres north of Baghdad - which remains among the most dangerous areas of Iraq, despite a series of security pushes by Iraqi and US forces.
Monday's deaths follow a US shooting in Kut, the capital of the predominantly Shiite province of Wasit, southeast of Baghdad, on Sunday, which killed the wife and brother of a local dignitary.
The killings sparked angry protests from Iraqi officials, who said the raid had been carried out without Iraqi approval, in violation of the agreement governing the presence of US forces in Iraq.
The US military said soldiers began shooting when "an individual with a weapon came out of the house" of local notable Sheikh Ahmed Abul-Sada, whom they had come to arrest.
The dead were subsequently identified as Abul-Sada's wife and brother. Abul-Sada was released later on Sunday.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, in a statement read on Baghdad's al-Iraqiya Sunday, demanded that the US military "transfer those responsible for this crime to the courts."
Under the terms of the US-Iraqi agreement governing the presence of US soldiers in Iraq, the US military may undertake operations only with the approval of the Iraqi government.
"These soldiers committed a crime, and killed an innocent family in cold blood, without the knowledge of the central government," said Majid al-Zamili, a Shiite member of the Iraqi parliament.
He said that the local provincial council, which has considerable control over security arrangements in the province, had decided to boycott cooperation with the US forces "until the US forces provide a clear explanation of the attack."
Colonel Richard Francey, the officer in charge of US forces in Wasit, apologized for the deaths at a news conference on Sunday, but the US military insisted that the raid had been authorized by the Iraqi government.
At a news conference Sunday, Major General Mohammed al-Askari, a spokesman for the Iraqi Ministry of Defence, said the ministry had ordered the detention of Iraqi soldiers for allowing US troops into the city. He said the ministry had also asked the US military to open an investigation into the raid.
