The US forces had to call in aircraft to deal with violent resistance in central Iraq on Monday morning, as the Iraqi court started the process to try two accused Ukrainian oil smugglers.
A US soldier was killed and another wounded in an organized attack in Habbaniya, some 70 km west of Baghdad, a US spokesman told reporters.
The soldiers came under attack around 9:10 a.m. (0510 GMT) Monday when their convoy hit a roadside bomb and met with ensuing gunfire, said Lt. Col. George Krivo.
Earlier, local radio reported that the US forces encountered fierce attacks in Fallujah, 50 km west of Baghdad, and Khaldiyah, 30 km further west.
Witnesses said helicopters and at least one warplane were seen flying over the area, and rocket-propelled grenades (RPG) and gunshots lasted for several hours.
They said the American troops suffered heavy casualties but the US-led coalition in Baghdad did not confirm the specific incidents, only saying six soldiers were wounded in an attack in the area a day before.
The US forces are frequently targeted in a vast land west and north of Baghdad, which is dubbed by some American officials as the "Sunni triangle."
At least 81 US soldiers have been killed in hostile fire since US President George W. Bush declared the major combat over on May 1.
In Tikrit, hometown of the ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, 200 US-trained Iraqi policemen and the American military forces launched a massive raid in an effort to curb resistant attacks.
The largest-ever joint raid was to hunt 12 fighters believed to be directly responsible for firing RPGs at US convoys in the turbulent area.
Four people were detained in the overnight operation, during which 15 houses were raided simultaneously in central part of the city, 160 km north of Baghdad.
In a sign to demonstrate the determination to crack down on oil smuggling, the new Iraqi court started a legal process to try two Ukrainian suspects.
The Ukrainians, known as the captain and first mate of the Navstar I tanker, were accused of breaking Iraq's customs laws by trying to smuggle 3,400 tons of diesel oil on board.
The two men and the other 19 Ukrainian crew members of the Panamanian-flagged ship were apprehended on Aug. 4 in the Iraqi territorial waters on their way to Dubai, said Lt. Col. Mike Kelly, a spokesman of the office of the general counsel of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA).
The coalition had estimated that between 10,000 to 15,000 tons of oil were currently smuggled out of the oil-rich but war-ravaged country every month.
Also on Monday, the CPA and the US-backed Iraqi Governing Council (IGC) confirmed that a prominent Shiite escaped an attack a day before but his bodyguard was killed.
The attack occurred around 3:00 p.m. (1100 GMT) on Sunday as Jalal Din al-Saghir, a Shiite official in the constitutional preparatory committee, was driving home in Baghdad.
The incident took place days after Washington gave the IGC six months to prepare a draft constitution, a timeline that US administrator in Iraq Paul Bremer said should start from the formation of a constitutional assembly.
On Monday, the IGC kicked off the discussion over the recommendations submitted by the preparatory committee on the election of the much-expected constitutional assembly.
The United States sees the new Iraqi constitution prior to a legitimate sovereign government, the only condition for the US forces to pull out.
(Xinhua News Agency September 30, 2003)
