U.S. soldiers from the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment check a car during a patrol in Sadr City

By Subhy Haddad, IOL Iraq correspondent

Baghdad, October 10 (IslamNOline.net & News Agencies) – Another dangerous front opened for the U.S. military in Iraq Friday, October 10, after two soldiers were killed in an ambush in Baghdad's volatile Sadr City following a shootout between U.S. forces and a Shiite militia in the wake of a car bomb blast that killed nine people.

At least two U.S. soldiers have been killed and 4 others wounded on Friday in an Iraqi guerrilla attack on an American convoy to the northwest of Baghdad, eyewitnesses said.

"Two 1st AD (armored division) soldiers were killed in action and four wounded in an ambush" in Sadr City on Thursday at 8:00 pm (1700 GMT), the U.S. military said in a statement.

The attack took place at 07:00 local time (04:00 GMT) when inhabitants of northwestern Baghdad heard a very strong explosion and eyewitnesses said that it was caused by the Iraqi guerrillas who planned an ambush for the U.S. convoy.

No details were available about the U.S. material losses, but eyewitnesses said the U.S. occupation forces have blocked the roads leading to the area of the explosion in order to evacuate their casualties and presumably destroyed military vehicles.

The east Baghdad Al-Sadr City that witnessed a booby-trapped car explosion on Thursday, October 9, that killed at least 3 policemen and 6 civilians and injured 27 others, witnessed a clash between Shiite demonstrators and the U.S. forces, eyewitnesses said.

They said the clashes continued till late last night and at least 2 U.S. soldiers were killed and 4 others wounded in the clashes.

Al-Sadr City, home for 2.5 million Shiites had witnessed strong tension following the attack on the police center, which neighbors a famous Shiite Huseiniya (mosque), whose Imam was reported to have been arrested by the U.S. troops.

The attack on the police center and the Shiite mosque created hostility among the Shiites, particularly the so-called Al-Mahdi Army (militia), led by the Shiite young leader Muqtada Al-Sadr.

Thousands of those Shiites, some of them carrying light machineguns rushed to the area and some of them clashed with the U.S. soldiers who tried to control the situation in vain.

Members of the Mahdi Army previously said just one of its members died in a shootout, but Sheikh Abdul Haji al-Darraji revised the toll to two killed.

It was not clear if the U.S. military and Sadr's group were referring to the same incident.

The police station attack was the deadliest attack since a car bomb killed influential moderate Shiite leader Ayatollah Mohammad Baqer al-Hakim and 82 others in the Muslim holy city of Najaf on August 29.

Meanwhile violence continued in the flashpoints north of Baghdad, notably in Baquba, the day after a U.S. soldier died in an RPG attack in the town 65 kilometers (40 miles) northeast of the Iraqi capital.

Four policemen were wounded early Friday when grenades were thrown at their station in Baquba, one of them, Hussein Alwan, 28, told Agence France-Presse (AFP).

U.S. forces also arrested 15 people in dawn searches early Friday at Al-Mafrak, west of Baquba, witness Amer Talal, 22, said.

The northern Kurdish town of Erbil, some 370 km to the north of Baghdad and now under control of two Kurdish political parties, witnessed an attack on a police center killing 2 policemen and wounding another.

Reports from the Iraqi border town of Al-Qaim, few kilometers away from the Syrian borders, also witnessed an attack that killed its Police Director, Rasheed Al-Humeidi on Thursday.

Al-Qaim had witnessed a number of attacks on U.S. soldiers and Iraqi police cooperating with them that killed and wounded a number of them over the past few weeks.

"Bumps In The Road"

However, the top U.S. official in Iraq, Paul Bremer, Thursday described the ongoing violence as "bumps in the road."

Bremer claimed the accomplishments of the U.S. troops "exceeded expectations", while U.S. President George W. Bush, facing growing criticism at home, launched a new drive to sell his administration's policy in Iraq.

Meanwhile, Spain mourned the death of First Sergeant Jose Antonio Bernal Gomez, who was assassinated at his home in Baghdad Thursday, in a reminder of the city's dangers.

Gomez, described by the foreign ministry in Madrid as an intelligence officer, "died as a result of gunshots fired by a group of people who Thursday morning went to his home," the ministry said. The attackers fired five times at Bernal when he opened the door.

Spain was a strong supporter of the war on Iraq and has some 1,250 soldiers in Iraq.