IRAQ: The body of the old man was stretched out grey and mottled in the mortuary.
Fathollah Hejazi (67), an Iranian pilgrim, was killed by shrapnel from a tank round as he walked with his family in front of the golden domes of Samarra's main mosque.
His corpse was one of eight brought to Samarra's central hospital after Sunday's bloody ambushes of American troops in which the US military reported 54 fedeyeen (rebel fighters) died.
But yesterday as peace returned to the town that had been quiet compared with neighbouring Tikrit and Falluja, an afternoon of violence left accusations of heavy-handedness and little evidence, other than Hejazi's body, of the raging battle fought on Samarra's streets.
At 1.20 p.m., two American logistics convoys entered the city from separate locations carrying money for a currency exchange programme. Following an agreement reached by civil leaders and local US forces to withdraw from the city, the convoys were the first coalition vehicles to enter the city centre in over a week.
A recent spate of attacks in Samarra - including an ambush of a civilian convoy in which 10 attackers were killed two weeks ago - prompted the US military to provide tanks and armoured personnel carriers to escort the convoys of jeeps and Humvees.
On Saturday, residents of Samarra reported receiving leaflets distributed by masked men inciting violence against the Coalition. "We don't need to wait for a fatwa from our religious leaders to kill Americans," they read.
The protective caution of the Americans proved well-founded. One convoy was hit by a roadside bomb shortly after entering the town, Iraqi witnesses said, although it proceeded to the bank. At 1.30 p.m. soldiers, guarded by tanks, began delivering a vast quantity of new banknotes to the Rafidian bank in the centre of town.
As both convoys prepared to leave, the fedayeen attacked with RPGs, mortars and small arms from the roofs of surrounding buildings. At the second bank on the edge of the commercial district, assailants leaped from cover firing rockets, a witness said.
A spokesman for the 4th Infantry Division said, "American soldiers were struck by heavy and sustained fire from separate locations across the city. US soldiers returned fire and the attackers were overwhelmed in all cases." The attack lasted for less than 20 minutes, with troops rapidly supported by four Apache helicopters. The US military said that two teams of up to 30 fedayeen warriors were involved in both the attacks, with a further four men detained after a third ambush on the outskirts of the town. Eleven attackers have now been detained.
On the streets of Samarra yesterday, shoppers were out in force and the US military had retreated again from the town.
At the Rafidian bank, the firefight had left several wrecked cars, a smattering of bullet holes in shopfronts along the street, and one building damaged by small-arms fire.
Down a narrow side alley facing the bank three wrecked cars stood, two struck by tank rounds, the third dotted with bullet holes. There were no obvious signs anyone had been in the vehicles. Omar Mehdi (27), a teacher who lives on the street, said he had parked the car there 30 minutes before the attack to have dinner with his father.
The father forlornly held up the burnt cinders of a Koran which had been on the dashboard of the car. "No one was killed in the car, in sha'Allah." He said.
They were sentiments echoed in the building, comprising ground floor shops and apartments for several families above.
Mahar Sabir Hadi, a mother of four children living in the upper floor that had been riddled with bullet holes said, "When we heard the sound of the shooting I hid with my family in the back room. We were terrified."
She claimed no one had entered her apartment, and that two empty rooms with a commanding view of the street had been unoccupied since the war.
Outside the mosque that stands at one end of the street, a tank round had landed on a Mitsubushi car, killing the Iranian pilgrim Hejazi, and two others.
"We heard the shooting and everyone began running, there was a terrible traffic jam and people were desperately trying to get out of their cars to escape," said one local shopkeeper.
At the scene of the second attack, a clothes shop two hundred metres away had been burnt out when a tank round landed nearby, although no one was injured. Two nearby buildings had also been hit by American gunners.
"I saw the flash from an RPG and then hid until the fighting had downed," said Sgt Mohammed Hassan, standing guard at a nearby police station.
The attacks had left an ugly mood in the town, where locals were unanimous in condemning indiscriminate firing by Americans. Iraqi witnesses claimed that US tanks fired a round at workers from a drug factory as they left work at 2 p.m. One woman was killed and 18 injured. A crater from the shell and a pool of blood stood nearby.
Four cars were also fired on in the parking lot of the hospital, and a nearby mosque was shelled, killing two.
Dr Faleh Hassan Asamara, who was on duty at Samarra's hospital on Sunday said, "The Americans have done a lot of shooting but I don't think that many [the number of dead claimed by the Americans] were killed." A spokesman for the 4th Infantry division said, "We don't believe fedayeen take their injured to local hospitals."