US forces used tanks and rocket-firing helicopters to fight their way out of ambushes yesterday as two convoys came under heavy attack west of the Iraqi capital, leaving at least one soldier dead.

They came as the US military confirmed that six US soldiers were wounded Sunday in a bomb attack on a convoy in Fallujah, 50 km west of the capital.

In northern Iraq, US forces killed a 10-year-old Iraqi boy and wounded a 25-year-old man when they opened fire Monday on hundreds of demonstrators who pelted them with stones in Hawija, west of Kirkuk, a hospital director said.

An Iraqi police officer said that unidentified assailants fired four mortar rounds Monday at a US position in the centre of Kirkuk, an Iraqi police station and an army rehabilitation centre.