Two American soldiers were killed and 11 wounded in a series of other attacks yesterday around the towns of Fallujah and Ramadi, both Sunni Muslim bastions where support was high for the ousted regime of Saddam Hussein.

The attacks came after two Iraqis, described as the sons of a local Sunni tribal chief, were shot dead and a third was wounded when their car failed to stop at a US checkpoint outside Fallujah late Thursday, witnesses said.

The friendly fire shooting in Fallujah shortly after midnight was second in 48 hours and one of the most serious incidents in the city that has seen frequent bloodshed since Saddam was chased from power in April.

Fallujah police chief Qahtan Adnan Hamad said 10 members of the locally-created protection force were killed and five Iraqi policemen wounded by US fire.

The 15 had given chase in two vehicles after gunmen in a BMW opened fire on the local governor's headquarters in the town centre, district patrol chief Lieutenant Colonel Jalal Sabri said.

When they reached a Jordanian-run hospital to the north of the town, they ran into US soldiers who opened fire on them, he said. Hospital staff said several of the US rounds had hit the hospital.

"We are very surprised by the sustained fire our unit came under. We just don't know the reason," said Sabri.

The hospital was riddled with bullets and shells, a Jordanian security guard was killed and at least foru Jordanians and an Iraqi wounded in the facility's administrative wing, Iraqi and Jordanian officials said.

The shooting came two days after an Iraqi policemen was killed and another wounded Wednesday when US troops opened fire in response to a bomb attack that injured four of their comrades.