US occupation forces have shot dead a 10-year-old child near the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk.

Soldiers opened fire at hundreds of stone-throwing demonstrators in Hawija, west of the mainly Kurdish city Kirkuk on Monday, said a hospital director.

A man, 25, was also hit in the heart.

The US army did not confirm the report. The casualties occurred when protesters carrying portraits of ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein took to the streets of Hawija and began pelting occupation soldiers with stones.

US Soldier dies

In Falluja, west of Baghdad, the US military confirmed that one American soldier was killed and one wounded in a bomb attack on a convoy on Monday.

A military spokeswoman, who would not give her name, said the convoy was attacked about 9:15 am (0515 GMT) by an "improvised explosive device" in the town of Habbaniyah, near where the Americans have a large base.

An Iraqi police officer told AFP that unidentified resistance fighters fired four mortar rounds on Monday morning at a US position in the center of Kirkuk, an Iraqi police station and an army rehabilitation center

The mortars apparently failed to hit their targets and caused no casualties or damage.

US forces have not restored security to war-torn Iraq since occupying Baghdad in April and continue to come under daily attack.

A military spokesman admitted that six US soldiers were wounded in a bomb attack on Sunday against a convoy in the hotspot town of Fallujah, 50km west of Baghdad.

The convoy was hit by a "improvised explosive device". The wounded soldiers are said to be in stable condition.

As lawlessness continues to grip the country, an Iraqi official working on how to draft a new constitution for the US-British occupied country escaped an assassination attempt.

Jalal al-Din al-Saghir, a prominent Shia, escaped unharmed when his car was attacked as he was driving home on Sunday afternoon, said an official on the US-appointed Governing Council on Monday.

Al-Saghir will be attending a meeting on the constitution on Monday. Last week Akila al-Hashimi, a member of Baghdad’s US-installed administration, died of gunshot wounds suffered in an ambush earlier in Baghdad.

That attack followed the 29 August bombing of Shia cleric Ayat Allah Muhammad Baqr al-Hakim in the southern city of Najaf, about 180km south of Baghdad.

At least 83 civilians were also killed in that blast.

Copyright 2003 AFP

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