FALLUJAH, Sept 14: A US soldier was killed and three wounded on Sunday in a new roadside attack in this town seething over the deaths of nine Iraqi security men and a Jordanian killed by US gunfire.

The latest violence occurred as US Secretary of State Colin Powell flew in to Baghdad for a look at the five-month-old US occupation plagued by continuing resistance, lawlessness and communal tensions.

Residents of Fallujah, still a hotbed of support for ousted leader Saddam Hussein, had sworn to avenge the killings on Friday of eight members of a local protection force, an Iraqi policeman and a Jordanian hospital guard.

A member of the US Army’s 82nd Airborne Division was killed early on Sunday and three soldiers wounded when their convoy was hit by an “improvised explosive device” in Fallujah, said a military spokeswoman, Sergeant Amy Abbott.

Witnesses said a US helicopter attempted to evacuate the wounded to a nearby hospital in the town, 50 kilometres west of Baghdad, but turned back without landing after it was targeted by a rocket that missed.

In another incident reported on Sunday, three US soldiers in the northern city of Mosul were wounded in an attack on Saturday mounted by assailants firing a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG).

The latest death in Fallujah brought to 75 the number of US soldiers killed by forces loyal to Saddam or foreign militants since Washington declared an end to major combat operations on May 1.—AFP