An Iraqi child throws a rock at a burning U.S. army vehicle in Baghdad

BAGHDAD, July 3 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – As U.S. civil administrator of Iraq Paul Bremer reportedly asked Washington to send more troops to occupied-Iraq, two Iraqis were killed and ten U.S. soldiers wounded in three separate attacks on American troops in Baghdad.

In a shooting on the northern fringes of the capital in the early hours, an American soldier and a six-year-old Iraqi boy were wounded in a shootout between U.S. forces and a gunman, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

In the shooting incident in the Kadhimyah neighborhood in the north of the capital, U.S. troops were conducting a routine night patrol when they came under fire.

"An Iraqi man attacked the patrol, shooting one of the soldiers. The soldiers returned fire in self defense, killing the gunman and wounding a boy, who was with the gunman," according to a military statement.

Both of the wounded were evacuated to the military field hospital and were in stable condition, it added.

Six Americans were wounded in Ramadi, 100 kilometers (60 miles) west of Baghdad.

The U.S. military said a two-vehicle convoy had been targeted by "an explosive device," wounding six soldiers.

Ramadi residents stressed that two people on a motorbike had fired a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) at a U.S. military vehicle.

Later in central Baghdad, three soldiers were wounded and an Iraqi civilian killed in another RPG attack, although one witness said he believed attackers had thrown a hand grenade.

"According to preliminary reports, there are three people wounded," Major Scott Patton said at the scene.

"It seems now that it was an RPG fired from a vehicle on the street," he added.

"An innocent Iraqi citizen sitting on a street corner was also killed, (by the blast) according to reports we are hearing."

He did not comment on witness reports that U.S. troops had opened fire on a car, shooting dead the driver.

Witness Majid Saadi said the attack occurred at around 10:00 am (0600 GMT) on Haifa street in central Baghdad.

He said he believed a hand grenade had been thrown at a U.S. armored vehicle, before it was set ablaze with gasoline.

An AFP correspondent saw the burned out wreckage of a military vehicle at the site.

Saadi said he thought the presumed Iraqi driver of the car, which he described as riddled with bullets, was dead.

There was a heavy U.S. presence at the scene, with soldiers closing off the road while they secured the area.

Non-combat

What remains of a U.S. Humvee burning along Haifa street in Baghdad, after being hit by an RPG

"A soldier attached to the 1st Armored Division died in a non-combat incident July 3," the American military said in a statement, without elaborating.

The name of the soldier was being withheld while officials notified family, it said, adding that the circumstances of the death were under investigation.

Before this latest death, U.S. defense officials said 67 U.S. troops had been killed in Iraq since May 1, when President George W. Bush declared an end to major combat.

The three attacks are the latest strikes on U.S. troops in and around the Iraqi capital, which have increased in recent days, prompting concern that U.S. forces in the country are overstretched.

A U.S. Marine was killed and three others were injured while they were clearing a minefield near Karbala, southern Iraq, on Wednesday, July 2, the military said in a statement.

Few hours after an American helicopter gunship reportedly bombed a mosque in Fallujah killing ten Iraqis, six U.S. soldiers were killed and four others injured in two separate attacks in central and southern Baghdad on Tuesday, June 1.

Help

Faced with a rising death toll and apparently increased armed resistance in the country, the U.S. civil administrator Paul Bremer was reported to have asked Washington for more troops to help.

Citing unnamed administration officials, The Philadelphia Inquirer newspaper said U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was reviewing the request.

Bremer's reported request underscores how difficult it has been for his staff and about 158,000 U.S.-led troops to stabilize the situation in war-torn Iraq, The Inquirer said.

"It is a legitimate critique of this administration that we did a brilliant job of planning the war, we didn't do a brilliant job of planning what's going on now," the paper quoted one senior defense official as saying.

Senior U.S. officials said Bremer had asked for dozens of civilian officials to make up for a shortage of skilled Iraqi administrators who were not closely affiliated with the ousted regime, according to the report.

In addition, more U.S. troops are needed as a "stopgap measure" until international peacekeepers start to arrive, The Inquirer quoted one official as saying.

A Defense Department spokesman declined to confirm or deny the report.

Russian Deputy Chief of Staff General Yury Baluyevsky warned Wednesday the U.S. is in danger of getting bogged down in another Vietnam in Iraq.

U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld rebuffed Tuesday reports Iraq was becoming a quagmire, struggling to defeat perceptions that the occupation of Iraq has reached a cul-de-sac.

U.S. President George Bush warned on June 21 that the U.S. forces in Iraq were facing a future of "danger and sacrifice".