Police station torn down in Iraq

Iraqis carrying hammers and axes yesterday began to demolish a police station in the troubled city of Falluja in a public act of defiance against the US military.

In what appeared to be a well-organised operation a crowd of labourers, mostly young men and boys, sawed off railings and tore out the metal window frames from the three-storey building. Others, using mallets and metal poles, knocked down the outer wall brick by brick, and were slowly trying to break apart the building itself.

Although the al-Tawhid police station was ransacked in the days immediately after the war, the US military had used the building intermittently as a centre for operations in Falluja and were negotiating to set up a full time base there.

Early on Thursday, one soldier was killed and five were injured outside the building when they were attacked with a rocket-propelled grenade.