Iraqis protest insensitive dog search by US troops

A sniffer dog search sparked an anti-US protest in Baghdad yesterday amid accusations of American insensitivity to Islamic culture.

"Down, down USA," shouted thousands of government employees angered by the detention of a woman who refused to be searched by US soldiers using a sniffer dog at the Oil Ministry in Baghdad.

Soldiers fired a few shots in the air to disperse the workers from the Oil Ministry and nearby ministries.

"I have been coming here for 27 years and now they (Americans) are searching us with dogs. We are Muslims," Saadiya Ahmad, an oil ministry engineer said.

Dogs are considered unclean in Islamic culture. "We don't just want the dogs to leave. We want the dogs who are holding the dogs to leave, every last one of them," said one employee, Nazir Mohammed.

A man who gave his name as Sabeeh said troops had handcuffed a woman employee and made her stand in the sun for an hour because she had refused the search.

Sniffer dogs are routinely used to search for explosives at government ministries to guard against bomb attacks.

In the north, pipelines that feed a Baghdad refinery and power station were ablaze, a day after a sabotage attack.