FALLUJAH, Iraq - Three Iraqis were killed and two US troops wounded in the restive town of Fallujah overnight when the soldiers came under attack, residents and military officials said Wednesday.
"The bodies of three people were brought into our establishment and three others with injuries were admitted," said Muthanna Khodair, a doctor at the main hospital in Fallujah, 50 kilometres (35 miles) west of Baghdad.
According to a US military spokesman, two coalition soldiers were also wounded and a vehicle destroyed when roadside bombs and small arms fire hit the troops in an ambush at about 1:30 am (2230 GMT).
"The wounded were medically evacuated by air," he said. The spokesman was unable to say whether any attackers had been hurt or arrested.
A coalition vehicle was also reported to have been destroyed.
A man who said he witnessed the incident, Waddah Ibrahim al-Himdani, said US soldiers entered the mainly Sunni Muslim town after midnight and were targeted with rocket-propelled grenades.
Mortar shells were also believed to have been fired at a US troop position three kilometres (two miles) to the east of the town, which is openly hostile to the US-led occupation coalition.
Gunfire and explosions sounded around the town for several hours, residents said. Two vehicles were set ablaze and gutted, while a number of houses were damaged by gunfire.
Meanwhile, a foreign security guard and an Iraqi child were killed in a drive-by-shooting outside Fallujah, a US army spokesman said Wednesday.
"One foreign protective security personnel and one child were killed in a small arms fire attack near to Fallujah at approximately 7:30 pm to 8:00 pm (1630 GMT to 1700 GMT) on Tuesday," the spokesman said.
The attack was a drive-by-shooting, according to the spokesman, who added that no coalition forces were hurt.
He was unable to give the nationality of the dead foreigner.
The attack came just hours after eight police cadets and two civilians were shot dead in a slick mafia-style strike by seven gunmen in two cars as they travelled to a police academy in the Shiite city of Hilla, 100 kilometres (60 miles) south of Baghdad, in a minibus.
In Mosul, three Iraqi policemen were wounded in an explosion on Wednesday, police officer Abdel Azel Hazem Hafuzi said.
An unidentified device exploded as a police pick-up truck drove by in central Mosul, injuring its three passengers, the officer said. The casualties were hospitalised.
No details were available on the attack, which came a day after two Iraqi civilians were killed and six wounded in a mortar strike on an army base in Mosul, where an Iraqi policeman was also seriously hurt by gunfire.
A rocket slammed into a major Baghdad hotel early Wednesday in a new targeted attack calculated to add chaos to the already complex process of returning sovereignty to the Iraqis at the end of June.
The rocket caused no injuries when it hit the sixth floor of the heavily-fortified Sheraton hotel at just after 4:00 am (0100 GMT), but it shook awake guests and sent a ripple of panic through the area.
Normally darkened like the neighbouring Palestine Hotel at that hour, most lights were on at the Sheraton, which is popular with Western contractors and the media, and lifts could be seen busily shuttling up and down.
"A rocket hit an air-conditioning unit on the sixth floor and knocked down a small portion of a wall," a journalist said, asking not to be named.
The hotels, towering over the skyline on the eastern bank of the Tigris river, are a tempting target for rebels and as a result are among the most secure sites in Baghdad, protected by cement barriers, barbwire and US troops.
While the damage was slight, the attack was a new cause for anxiety among foreigners following a car bombing a week ago that killed seven people and wounded 35 others near another hotel in eastern Baghdad.
Two more hotels were also hit by rocket-propelled grenades last Thursday in the same Karrada district, causing damage but no injuries.
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