Falluja has been the scene of several anti-U.S. attacks and of clashes between the occupation troops and Iraqi demonstrators

BAGHDAD, June 20 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – U.S. troops patrolling in Iraq have again come under attack, this time in the flashpoint town of Fallujah overnight, in the latest challenge to their efforts to crush remaining resistance in the country.

Several U.S. soldiers guarding the power station in the town west of Baghdad were wounded late Thursday, June 19, in the twin rocket-propelled grenade attack, which caused a major power cut in the region, and also targeted a government office, witnesses said.

U.S. officials have yet to confirm the incident, Agence France-Presse (AFP) said.

Falluja, 45 miles west of Baghdad, has been the scene of several attacks on U.S. soldiers and of clashes between the troops and Iraqi demonstrators.

The attack after four U.S. soldiers were killed and two others injured in two separate attacks in Baghdad.

Three U.S. soldiers were killed in Dura, on the southern fringes of Baghdad, when their vehicle came under heavy fire from Iraqi fighters, Al-Jazeera satellite television reported.

In another attack, a U.S. army medic was killed and two other soldiers wounded Thursday in a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) attack in Al-Iskandariya, south of Baghdad, a U.S. military spokeswoman said.

Tensions have flared in the capital against the U.S. continued occupation to the country, the slow return of basic services, with former Iraqi army soldiers warning they are ready to take up arms against the city's U.S. occupiers if a dispute with the U.S. administration is not settled by Monday, June 23.

The former soldiers are demanding that the top U.S. civil administrator, Paul Bremer, either pays up wages owed to them since the army was disbanded last month, or gives them their jobs back.

"If on Monday at noon, the Americans do not find a suitable solution to our tragic situation, we will take up arms," one of the protesters, Tahseen Ali Hussein, told AFP.

"We are all very well trained soldiers and we are armed. We will start ambushes, bombings and even self-bombings. We will not let the Americans rule us in such a humiliating way," he added.

A demonstration by the ex-soldiers degenerated into violent clashes on Wednesday, June 18, when U.S. soldiers shot dead three of the protesters.

Sixteen U.S. soldiers have been killed in targeted attacks since President George W. Bush declared the war in Iraq effectively over on May 1, according to an AFP count from U.S. military statements.

Three of those were killed this week: one by a sniper, another in a drive-by shooting in Baghdad, the third in Thursday's rocket attack.

Major General Ray Odierno, commander of the U.S. Army's 4th Infantry Division, said Wednesday that attacks on his forces were a reaction to pressure applied by U.S. raids and did not signal growing popular opposition.

"I think they're desperate. I think they're becoming less and less organized," he said, insisting that the Baathists lacked the leaders, weapons and organization to mount an effective challenge to U.S. forces.

"This is not guerrilla warfare. It is not close to guerrilla warfare, because it's not coordinated, it's not organized and it's not led," he said.

The army's ongoing and extensive Desert Scorpion operation, using the pretext of pulling in diehard "Saddam Hussein loyalists" and paramilitary fighters as well as members of the former ruling Baath Party, has so far yielded hundreds of arrests and interrogations.

A U.S. army spokeswoman said Thursday that nearly 300 people were still in detention following broad sweeps, especially north of Baghdad, with the U.S. military intent on wiping out all remaining resistance.