October 3, 2003	Friday	Sha’aban 6, 1424

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FALLUJAH, Iraq, Oct 2: A gunman was killed while two US soldiers and four Iraqi civilians were wounded on Thursday in a battle that erupted after a military patrol was ambushed in Fallujah, witnesses said.

Ten soldiers were on patrol near Fallujah’s main municipal building when “unidentified assailants drove past them in a car and opened fire on them,” witness Hossam Ali told AFP.

“Two US soldiers were wounded” in the incident.

US troops returned fire and hit four people, including a woman, a child, a man who was passing by and a member of the Iraqi police, said Ali, who was walking down the street at the time of the incident in the heart of Fallujah.

While the car raced off, a pedestrian opened fire on the troops, who shot him dead, said municipal building security guard Mohammed Qassem.

The four wounded civilians were rushed to hospital, added Iraqi police Lieutenant Jassem Mohammad.

A US army spokeswoman said the violence started when a crowd gathered in front of the mayor’s office and an Iraqi sprayed gunfire at them and at the building.

Following the shoot-out, a man riding a motorcycle fired a rocket- propelled grenade at the municipal building, but missed his target and then fled on foot, Qassem said.

In nearby Khaldiya, an eight-vehicle military convoy hit a landmine. There were no casualties, although the blast ripped a water main, witnesses said.

SUICIDE BOMBING: Two suicide bombers blew themselves up late Thursday outside a dry cleaners used by US troops in Kirkuk, an Iraqi civil defence official said, adding there were no US casualties.

The suicide bombings came after six explosions rocked Kirkuk, including a roadside blast that destroyed a US Humvee vehicle and wounded two American soldiers, according to a senior security source who asked not to be named.

Lieutenant Shaker al-Riyashi of the civil defence said the suicide bombers “were two youths who wore explosive belts strapped to their bodies but we were not able to identify them because they were badly mutilated.”

The attack at the dry cleaners occurred about 11:30 pm when the shop was empty. It triggered a fire that was quickly doused, Riyashi said.

The US military said they had no report of any incident.

EXPLOSIONS: Six explosions rocked the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk on Thursday evening, police Colonel Khattab Abdullah said, and an AFP correspondent reported that US warplanes hovered over the town after the blasts.

“At least six explosions caused by rocket propelled grenades and mortars” shook several parts of the city within 20 minutes, Abdullah said, adding that there were no immediate reports of casualties.

At least one of the explosions was heard near a US position in the city, witnesses contacted by AFP said. US troops pursuing two wounded assailants in the Baghdad area found two trucks loaded with hundreds of rockets and a detonator that indicated they were being used to make a bomb, the Pentagon said on Thursday.—AFP