Baghdad, Aug 3 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - A 75-year-old Iraqi farmer was shot dead and his son wounded Sunday, August 3, after being turned back at a coalition checkpoint west of Fallujah, as U.S. soldiers came under a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) attack in northeast Iraq on the road between Baquba and Baghdad, wounding two of the troops.

As U.S. occupation troops trawled Iraq for ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein Sunday, the two Iraqis were caught in the lethal crossfire of the U.S.-led forces war on Iraqi resistance fighters.

The killed farmer's family told Agence France-Presse (AFP) that as “they (the two Iraqi civilians) prepared to turn around (upon the orders of U.S. forces manning the checkpoint), they came under fire from the checkpoint. The father died on the spot while his son was hit in the jaw and left hand.

The U.S. army, for its part, had no immediate comment on the incident.

In Baquba, the two U.S. soldiers were wounded when their Humvee all-terrain vehicle was hit, the witnesses told AFP, adding U.S. troops cordoned off the motorway just below Baquba, 60 kilometers (36 miles) north of Baghdad.

Baquba falls within what the U.S. officials call “a Sunni Muslim triangle” north and west of the capital, considered a haven for Saddam Hussein's supporters.

In Tikrit, U.S. troops have snatched 26 men in a series of raids, including two key members of the ousted Baath Party, Lieutenant Colonel Ted Martin of the Fourth Infantry Division said Sunday.

One of the men was arrested in Baquba and a second was captured 300 kilometers (180 miles) northeast of the capital, Martin said.

The two suspects - caught overnight - were rounding up recruits for anti-U.S. attacks, he added.

Separately, witnesses in Baquba said 10 people were arrested in a morning raid Sunday on farmhouses, a witness told AFP.

The U.S.-led coalition in Iraq has conducted wave after wave of arrests in the “Sunni Muslim triangle”, as they hope to capture Saddam Hussein.

The fallen Iraqi President is seen by the United States as the chief inspiration for deadly attacks which have cost the lives of 53 soldiers since it declared major combat over on May 1.

Last week alone, the U.S. military announced it had captured more than 700 people, amid a flurry of tips since Saddam's sons, Uday and Qusay, were killed July 22 in the northern city of Mosul.

Three soldiers were wounded in a bomb blast Saturday night near a bridge in Tikrit, the bastion of Iraq's ousted President, Lieutenant Colonel Bill MacDonald of the Fourth Infantry Division said.

"The lead vehicle in a four vehicle patrol was ambushed on highway one. An improvised explosive device was used resulting in three U.S. soldiers wounded," said MacDonald.

"The soldiers sustained shrapnel wounds, were evacuated and are in a stable condition," he said.

The attack came the same day that Saddam's sons Uday and Qusay were buried in the neighboring village of Awja, in a burial which coincided with the 13th anniversary of Iraq's invasion of Kuwait.

In another attack, a car was in flames Sunday morning on the main highway to the Baghdad airport, a road where U.S. troops regularly come under attack, but this time an Iraqi was caught in the crossfire.

The vehicle was hit by "a small explosive device or a rocket-propelled grenade" at 8:30 am (0430 GMT), said Sergeant Brent William, a public affairs officer.

The driver, who managed to escape the car, was wounded in the blast, which happened at the same spot where a U.S. soldier and three others were wounded in a landmine attack three days before.

In recent weeks, troops have bulldozed thick underbrush lining the highway in an effort to prevent ambushes around the airport, one of the main U.S. military bases in Iraq.

In what amounted to an advertisement for the betrayal of Saddam, Bremer boasted Saturday about the tip-off leading to the deaths of the ousted president's sons Uday and Qusay on July 22 in a blistering battle in Mosul.

Hawking the benefits of turning on Iraq's former first family, he said the coalition had paid the informant his 30-million dollar reward and relocated him and his family.

"We are going to get Saddam too. The only question is who is going to get the 25 million dollars and move to another country," Bremer said.