ISTANBUL, Turkey - Thirteen villagers were acquitted Wednesday of attacking US troops with stones and eggs after an errant US Tomahawk missile fell near their village three years ago.

The Turkish court ruled the villagers' actions did not constitute a crime. Defense lawyer Seyhmus Ulek said the incident was "a democratic reaction against American soldiers."

Some 75 villagers from the southeastern town of Sanliurfa hurled eggs and stones at a group of about a dozen US soldiers going to retrieve pieces of Navy-fired missile, which was intended for Iraq but crashed into an empty Turkish field in March 2003.

The villagers broke the windows of four Humvees and injured one soldier, a spokesman for US forces in Turkey said at the time.

The Tomahawk missile was the third US-fired missile to crash into Turkey that week.

Tomahawk missiles are fired from warships and submarines and have a range of nearly 1,000 miles. The soldiers who went to retrieve the missile came from Incirlik Air Force Base, a major base in southern Turkey that had been used by the US to launch operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The United States and Turkey are traditionally close allies and field the two largest armies in the NATO military alliance.