BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Protests by frustrated jobless Iraqis in two cities turned violent on Wednesday as demonstrators threw rocks and set cars ablaze while local security forces responded with gunfire.
In central Baghdad, a few dozen protesters looking for work at a U.S.-backed local security force hurled rocks at the building. Flames and black smoke poured from a police car and a civilian vehicle while gunfire echoed around the area.
In the northern city of Mosul, a much larger crowd threw rocks at an employment office before marching to a local government building. Some storekeepers closed their shops.
Security guards fired shots in the air and the crowd began to disperse.
At the Baghdad protest, which took place near a hotel where many Western journalists and other foreign workers are based, police fired automatic rifles and pistols as demonstrators took cover behind nearby buildings.
"We didn't shoot at the beginning. We think this is a democracy and they can express their point of view. But then they started firing," policeman Falah Hassan said at the scene. He said several people were wounded.
The violence lasted for around half an hour. U.S. troops arrived in the aftermath and secured the area.
Protesters said they had come repeatedly to the office of a force set up to guard state property to look for work.
"Most of us were soldiers and then they disbanded the army and all the soldiers became jobless," one man said. "We've filled out forms and two months later, still no result."
The U.S.-led administration running Iraq since the war that ousted Saddam Hussein in April disbanded the Iraqi army, viewing the force as a tool of the deposed Baath party. The administration is in the process of setting up a new army.
International officials have estimated the unemployment rate in Iraq may be running at around 50 percent.
(Additional reporting by Seb Walker in Mosul)