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Dubai: American troops on April 30 shot dead three people and injured several others in a fresh clash with Iraqi demonstrators in Falujah town, even as US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on his first visit to Baghdad promised to let the Iraqis form their own government.

Reports quoting witnesses and a doctor from Falujah, 50 kms West of Baghdad, said US soldiers riding in jeeps and armoured vehicles opened fire after children started pelting them with shoes and stones during a protest of thousands of people over a similar shooting April 28 night in which 13 people were killed.

US military spokesmen said troops were fired on first in both incidents, which occurred outside facilities being used by US paratroops in the town.

Rumsfeld, who is on a week long visit to the Gulf to thank the coalition troops who took part in the military campaign as well as regional leaders who provided support, met top US commanders at their new base in Baghdad.

In a taped message for broadcast to the Iraqi people from a special US military plane, he said, "Iraq belongs to you. The coalition has no intention of owning or running Iraq."

"You can form an interim government on your own, a free Iraqi government, a government of your choosing, a government that is of Iraqi design," he said.

Rumsfeld, who earlier visited the Southern port city of Basra, said the coalition forces would stay as long as necessary and not one day longer.

He also sought support of Iraqi people to rid the country of "foreign fighters, those from neighbouring countries who are seeking to hijack your country".

A London-based Arabic newspaper al-Quds al-Arabi, published a letter purporting to come from ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

Dated April 28 and received by fax, it called on Iraqis to unite against occupation.

The paper's editor Abdel Bari Atwan said he believed the letter was genuine as the signature resembled Saddam Hussein's.

US forces near Baghdad captured a man they described as a midlevel terrorist operative with links to al- Qaida, an unnamed counter-terrorism official said.

The unidentified operative, who was captured this week, works for Abu Musab Zarqawi, a senior associate of Osama bin Laden, the official said.

US force found $ 100 million and 90 million Euros in cash in a Baghdad neighbourhood, the US Central Command said in a statement.

It said the American troops located 31 containers loaded with the cash, which were flown out of Baghdad international airport on April 27 "under security escort of members of a finance unit, Military Police and the criminal investigations division".

In Washington, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the US would make an initial $ two million contribution to help protect and restore Iraqi antiquities and museums.

"The funds will support specific cultural preservation needs to be identified in consultation with Iraqi cultural officials," he said.

PTI