If I were the Telegraph's copy editor, I would re-write that sentence to this:
Last week, Americans killed 15 people - among them two young boys who were shooting AK-47s at them - at Fallujah, an impoverished Shia area 30 miles west of Baghdad - when ex-Ba'athist Party officials pretended to become angry at the Americans' occupation of the local school. They provoked a crowd of fellow Ba'athists to riot, even giving AK-47s to innocent 15-yer olds and taunting them to shoot at the Marines in an attempt to force the Marines to fire back in front of the pre-arranged CNN cameras. The ex-Ba'ath Party officials are struggling to get the Marines out of Fallujah so they can establish a foothold from which they can regain their lost power and authority.