BAGHDAD, Iraq Two Iraqis were killed and an Iraqi policeman was critically injured in an attack on a Baghdad police station, witnesses and U.S. military officials said Tuesday.

According to U.S. military police, a vehicle pulled up to the police station at approximately 8 p.m. Monday evening (noon EDT) and a man asked for medical assistance.

Troops gathered to help the man when a series of loud explosions were heard. They were believed to be from hand grenades tossed over a wall into the police station.

Automatic gunfire came from a building across the street, the military said.

Iraqi witnesses said the two civilians were killed and several were wounded when the U.S. troops returned fire -- shooting at several buildings directly in front of the police station. There were no U.S. casualties, military officials said.

A U.S. military spokesman said the victims' bullet wounds did not appear to have been caused by the weapons U.S. troops fired.

Near Balad, north of Baghdad, a U.S. military supply base north of the Iraqi capital has come under mortar fire, an American military spokeswoman said Tuesday. There were no reports of American casualties.

U.S. military officials said Monday that two American soldiers were killed in separate attacks in Baghdad and that four were wounded in Ramadi, about 75 miles (120 kilometers) west of the Iraqi capital.

The first of those attacks occurred late Sunday when a member of the U.S. Army's 1st Armored Division was killed while pursuing Iraqi gunmen. An Iraqi was killed and one was wounded in the exchange.

A second 1st Armored Division soldier was killed early Monday when an "improvised explosive device" hit his vehicle, military officials said.

U.S. troops have suffered 30 deaths from hostile action since President Bush declared an end to major combat operations in Iraq on May 1, according to the Pentagon. There have been 43 service members' deaths unrelated to hostilities.

A sniper shot and wounded a British soldier in southern Iraq in the first such attack on UK troops since the end of the war on Sunday, officials said. The soldier is in stable condition after being shot in the leg, the British Ministry of Defence (MoD) said Tuesday. (Full story)

Latest tape urges resistance
The Lebanese Broadcasting Corp. on Tuesday aired an audiotape purportedly from Saddam Hussein calling for Iraqis to "intensify resistance" against "occupying troops."