Iraqis killed in anti-US protest
At least 13 Iraqis are reported to have been killed in the town of Falluja when US forces opened fire on demonstrators on Monday night.
There are conflicting reports as to what happened in the town, which lies 50 kilometres (35 miles) west of Baghdad.
A US spokesman said soldiers started shooting after people in the crowd fired on them - but Iraqi witnesses said the protesters were unarmed.
The reports from Falluja came as US Central Command announced that an adviser to Saddam Hussein and former oil minister had been taken into custody.
Amer Mohammed Rasheed is said to have handed himself in on Monday - he is the 14th Baath official whose capture has been announced.
He is married to Dr Rihab Taha - a microbiologist known as Dr Germ - who is believed to have been a senior figure in one of Iraq's biological warfare programmes.
Saddam's birthday
American forces are reported to have entered Falluja for the first time two days ago.
A local Sunni cleric, Kamal Shaker Mahmoud, said the demonstrators were unarmed and had gone to a local school occupied by US forces to ask them to leave, Reuters news agency reports.
"It was a peaceful demonstration. They did not have any weapons. They were asking the Americans to leave the school so they could use it," the cleric is quoted as saying.
Witnesses quoted by the French news agency, AFP, said the demonstrators had been marking Saddam Hussein's birthday when the Americans opened fire.
The report said protesters were carrying portraits of their ousted leader and Iraqi flags when they approached a school manned by US troops.
US Colonel Arnold Bray said American forces had come under fire from the protesters.
Seven people had been killed in the incident, he said.
According to local residents, several children were among the dead.
A Reuters correspondent in the town said mourners chanted "Our soul and our blood we will sacrifice to you martyrs" as burials got under way.
'Dr Germ' link
The latest Iraqi official to be taken into US custody is number 47 on America's list of the 55 most wanted and the six of spades in the deck of cards issued to coalition forces to identify Iraqi leaders.
Mr Rasheed is alleged to have been involved in the production of secret weapons before rising to the post of oil minister in 1995.
The official reason given for his removal from that ministry in January was that he was beyond Iraq's mandatory retirement age of 63.
But reports at the time suggested his sudden departure in the run up to the US-led war could have been connected to the role of his wife.
Dr Taha was believed to have been near the top of a list of biological weapons scientists that UN inspectors wanted to interview.
She is thought to have carried out work at the top-secret biological research lab al-Hakim in the late 1980s on germs that cause botulism poisoning and anthrax infections.
Weapons inspectors who interviewed her in the mid-1990s gave her the nickname Dr Germ.
She is not on the US list of 55 most wanted Iraqis, but American officials are thought to be keen to interview her.
Source: BBC