Iraqis scream as they fire their machine guns into the air during the funeral of U.S.-slain Iraqi policemen in Fallujah

Additional Reporting By Subhy Haddad, IOL Correspondent

BAGHDAD, September 14 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – One U.S. soldier was killed and three others were injured when their vehicle came under attack in Fallujah Sunday, September 14, as U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell arrived in Baghdad for the first time since the collapse of the Saddam Hussein regime.

An American military convoy was attacked with an "improvised explosive device" (IED) in the hotspot town of Fallujah, leaving one soldier killed and three wounded, a U.S. military spokeswoman confirmed.

Witnesses at the scene said a U.S. helicopter attempted to land to carry the wounded to a nearby hospital but was scared off after it was targeted by a rocket, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Sergeant Amy Abbott, a spokeswoman for the U.S.-led forces in Iraq, said the attack came at 8:00 am (0400 GMT) in Fallujah, 50 kilometers west of Baghdad.

Witnesses said the highway between Fullujah and Ramadi, a further 60 kilometers to the west, had been cut with troops inspecting vehicles and checking the roadside for IEDs, according to the BBC News Online.

The attack came one day after thousands of heavily-armed Iraqi tribesmen paid their last tribute to nine Iraqi security personnel gunned down by the occupation forces, in what the Americans claimed was a "friendly fire" incident.

A chorus of Kalashnikovs reverberated around the city as the bodies of the dead and mourners vowed to avenge their murdered loved ones.

A group of masked men, describing themselves as anti-U.S. resistance forces, spoke briefly to reporters, issuing a chilling warning.

"We will conduct an operation tonight to avenge the martyrs," one said.

The U.S. military has apologized and announced an investigation into the shootings but there are discrepancies in the accounts of the incident given by the U.S. military and local residents.

Powell In Baghdad

Meanwhile, Powell arrived in Baghdad Sunday morning from Kuwait aboard a U.S. Air Force Hercules C-130 transport plane and was greeted by senior U.S. military officers on the tarmac of Baghdad airport.

Powell, who came from emergency U.N. talks in Geneva that failed to resolve core issues among the Security Council's big five over Iraq's future, is the first U.S. secretary of state to visit Iraq in half a century.

His visit is seen as a further demonstration of Washington's support for the U.S. administrator in Iraq, Paul Bremer, and the U.S.-handpicked Iraqi Governing Council.

U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher had said that Powell would "meet with Iraqis and with members of the Coalition Provisional Authority in order to see firsthand the progress being made by the international community and by the Iraqi people in rebuilding their nation and society from 30 years of Saddam Hussein's destructive rule."

Powell's visit to Iraq follows one earlier this month by U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

Rumsfeld's deputy Paul Wolfowitz and several members of Congress have also recently visited the country.

Although the United States supports the United Nations playing a greater role in Iraq, Powell has criticized attempts to marginalize Bremer's team and the interim Governing Council.

En route to Geneva, Powell also dismissed as "totally unrealistic" proposals made by his French counterpart Dominique de Villepin for a calendar for a return to Iraqi sovereignty including general elections early next year.