US soldiers kill two in 'brawl' at Abu Ghraib

American military police shot and killed two detainees and wounded five others in an attempt to quell a brawl at Abu Ghraib prison yesterday.

American military police shot and killed two detainees and wounded five others in an attempt to quell a brawl at Abu Ghraib prison yesterday.

The trouble began when detainees attacked an inmate with stones and tent poles at a tented detention camp in what became abrawl involving 200 inmates, Lt-Col Barry Johnson, the US military's spokesman for detention operations in Iraq, said. He added that detainees threw stones at American soldiers, ignoring verbal warnings and a volley of rubber bullets from military police.

"A determination was made that, if lethal force wasn't used, this detainee [being attacked] was going to be killed," Lt-Col Johnson said.

One of the detainees was killed on the spot and a second, critically wounded, died of his wounds at a military hospital.

Abu Ghraib was at the centre of a scandal earlier this year over allegations that US guards abused Iraqi detainees. US authorities have released thousands of inmates from Abu Ghraib in recent months.