Protesters stone British forces

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Hundreds of Iraqis hurled stones at British soldiers who waded into the crowd wielding batons in the southeastern town of Amarah on Sunday, witnesses said, a day after clashes that killed six protesters and wounded at least 11.\nProtesters demanding jobs tried to rush the troops guarding the city hall, but the British drove them back from the compound, which also houses the offices of the U.S.-led occupation force and the 1st Battalion of Britain's Light Infantry.\nAlso Sunday, U.S. forces arrested a Saddam Hussein loyalist suspected in last month's shooting of an American soldier who was saved by his flak jacket, the Army said.\nThe soldier whom the Iraqi allegedly shot, Sgt. Jeffrey Allen of Leitchfield, Ky., made the arrest, said Lt. Col. Steve Russell.\nThe troops arrested the man in a raid on his home in Tikrit, acting on a neighbor's tip, said Russell, commander of the 1st Battalion, 22nd Infantry Regiment of the Army's 4th Infantry Division. He said the arrested Iraqi was a member of Saddam's former Fedayeen paramilitary fighters.\nAllen was shot twice in the back on Dec. 30 during a patrol in Tikrit. He was saved by the protective back plate in his flak jacket, Russell said.\nSoldiers also seized an AK-47 assault rifle, ammunition and several photos of the detained man posing with Saddam and the deposed Iraqi dictator's late sons, Odai and Qusai.\nThe trouble in Amarah, 200 miles southeast of Baghdad, started Saturday when hundreds of Iraqis gathered to protest that authorities had not kept a promise to give them jobs.\nThey stoned the town hall, shattering windows. Shots rang out, makeshift bombs were thrown and the British and Iraqi police opened fire. Hospital officials said six people were killed. The British put the death toll at five -- with no casualties among soldiers or police.\nOn Sunday, demonstrators sent a representative to talk to British and Iraqi officials, who promised them 8,000 jobs, according to witnesses. But protesters said a similar promise made weeks before had not been fulfilled, and the clash ensued. No Iraqi police were visible at the scene Sunday.\nThe Navy also said Sunday that fighter jets from the USS Enterprise dropped a 1,000-pound bomb on "an enemy mortar position" near Balad, in northern Iraq. It said Friday's attack was the first use of precision-guided munitions this year from the carrier, which is in the Gulf.\nOn Saturday, the Danish military said Danish engineering troops and Icelandic de-miners found artillery shells near Quarnah, north of Basra, which may contain chemical blister agents. The shells were wrapped in plastic but some had leaked, and they appeared to have been buried for at least 10 years, the statement said.\nThe shells were sent for further testing to determine if they were chemical weapons, banned in Iraq under U.N. resolutions.\nBefore the war, the United States alleged Iraq still had stockpiles of mustard gas, a World War I-era blister agent, stored in liquid form. U.S. intelligence officials also claimed Iraq had sarin, cyclosarin and VX, which are extremely deadly nerve agents.\nLack of evidence in a nine-month search since then has led critics to suggest the Bush administration either mishandled or exaggerated its knowledge of Iraq's alleged arsenal.\nSaddam's regime used chemical weapons against Iranian soldiers and killed an estimated 5,000 Kurdish civilians in a chemical attack on the northern city of Halabja in 1988.