BAGHDAD, August 29 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - One U.S. soldier was killed and three wounded in a rocket-propelled grenade and small arms attack in Iraq Friday, August 29, U.S. Central Command said, as an undetermined number of U.S. soldiers were injured in another attack.

"One 4th Infantry Division soldier was killed and three were wounded in a rocket-propelled grenade and small arms fire attack one kilometer (less than a mile) north of As-Suaydat at approximately 9:15 am (0515 GMT) today," a Central Command statement said, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP).

As-Suaydat is near the hotspot town of Baquba, some 65 kilometers (40 miles) northeast of Baghdad, where U.S. soldiers regularly come under attack.

"The wounded soldiers were taken to the 21st Combat Support Hospital for treatment," the Centcom statement said.

A witness earlier told AFP he had heard an explosion caused by the firing of rocket-propelled grenades and seen four American soldiers lying on the ground.

"I rushed out (after hearing the blast) and saw a vehicle on fire and four soldiers lying on the ground. One was dead covered with a blanket, and three were receiving first aid," said Hussein Sadr, a shopkeeper.

U.S. helicopters buzzed overhead after the incident, he said.

In another attack, an undetermined number of U.S. soldiers were also wounded Friday in Ramadi a day after a British soldier was killed in southern Iraq and eight U.S. troops were wounded as resistance to the U.S.-led occupation showed no letup five months after the fall of Baghdad.

In Ramadi, an undetermined number of U.S. soldiers were wounded Friday when a bomb went off as they drove through the flashpoint town of Ramadi, 100 kilometers (60 miles) west of Baghdad, witnesses said.

"A bomb went off under two U.S. vehicles driving by the Saddam Great Mosque in the center of Ramadi at around 7:00 am (0300 GMT), destroying one vehicle, damaging the other and injuring a number of soldiers," Qusay Ismail al-Suwaidawi, a resident of the town, told AFP.

U.S. troops called in reinforcements and two helicopters were seen hovering over the scene of the attack, he said.

The wounded soldiers were evacuated as troops cordoned off the site, Suwaidawi added.

On Thursday, August 28, many U.S. soldiers were wounded, four in an attack in the flashpoint town of Fallujah, 60 kilometers (40 miles) west of Baghdad, and the others on a road north of the capital, a military spokesman said.

A military convoy also came under fire on the road between Kirkuk and Balad, north of Baghdad, leaving four people wounded, the spokesman said.

The British soldier was killed and another wounded in the southeastern province of Maysan, near the border with Iran, when a convoy of troops were confronted by a mob, a British military spokesman said.

The troops were returning from a raid on the town of Ali al-Gharbi, where they had arrested two men for "anti-coalition" activities, spokesman Major Charlie Mayo said.

The death brought to 11 the number of British soldiers killed in Iraq since Washington declared major combat over on May 1.

This comes as European countries opened debate on helping with the peacekeeping effort after Washington said it might hand some responsibilities over to the United Nations, with France calling for a "real international force" in Iraq.

The U.S. army's 4th Infantry Division, meanwhile, detained 17 more people north of Baghdad as it scoured the countryside for criminals and Saddam Hussein's henchmen on the third day of its Operation Ivy Needle, a military spokesman said.

The unrest in the south came as U.S. marines were preparing to hand over five provinces in south-central Iraq to a 9,000-troop Polish-led multinational force. The handover is to be complete by September 3.

The ground commander in Iraq, Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, said that the coalition does not need more troops in Iraq but more human intelligence on anti-coalition activities.

"This environment is an environment that requires intelligence ... It is clear to me at this point in time given the missions and given the tasks, it is not a matter of additional soldiers. That's not going to solve the problem when I don't have the intelligence to act on," Sanchez told reporters.

"It's an issue of being able to work with the Iraqi people, and getting the Iraqi people to help us.

Sanchez dismissed the notion that more soldiers could stabilize a shaky environment around Baghdad and north and west of the capital, which climaxed in last week's devastating bombing of the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad.

"I can tell you unequivocally: I'm not ... recruiting an intelligence service, and I'm not involved in rehiring any of the Iraqi intelligence service former personnel and they will not be brought onto any future intelligence service that Iraq may consider in the future," Sanchez said.

French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin told a gathering of French ambassadors in Paris that "whatever measures are taken cannot simply be an increase or an adjustment of the current occupation forces.

"It involves putting in place a real international force under a mandate from the UN Security Council," he said.

His comments, a reiteration of France's position, came after US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage said this week Washington might be willing to accept U.N. leadership of an international force in Iraq if a U.S. general remained in command.

France, Germany, India, Russia and other countries have so far refused U.S. pleas for troops and would do so only under the U.N. flag.

De Villepin said elections should be held before the end of the year.

The Dutch government faced a grilling in parliament from opposition parties demanding to know why it agreed to lend political support to the U.S.-led war in Iraq.

Leftwing MPs wanted answers on whether The Hague had based its decision on controversial intelligence reports about Iraq's weapons that have since been called into question.