Six British soldiers were killed in a police station in southern Iraq and eight were wounded in a nearby ambush Tuesday, marking the deadliest day of attacks on coalition forces since the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime. The casualties were a shock to British troops occupying the largely Shiite south, which until now had been essentially free of the daily hit-and-run attacks plaguing American soldiers in central and western Iraq. British troops have felt so secure they have been patrolling the country's second-largest city, Basra, without flak jackets or helmets. The U.S. military said insurgents had increased their attacks on American and British troops: 25 over a 24-hour period, including a firefight in Ramadi, west of Baghdad, that killed three Iraqis and wounded an American soldier. The violence fueled concerns that Iraq is descending into a guerrilla war despite U.S. insistence that resistance is local, not centrally organized. The British casualties occurred in the town of Majar al-Kabir, about 180 miles southeast of Baghdad and just south of the city of Amarah. The violent demonstration in Majar al-Kabir was the second in two days, apparently sparked by British soldiers' searches for heavy weapons in homes, said Abu Zahraa, a 30-year-old local vendor. "This angered the people because they went into women's rooms," Zahraa said. "The people considered it an invasion of privacy." Armed Iraqis killed two of the British soldiers at the scene of the demonstration - in front of the mayor's office - and then stormed a police station and killed four other British soldiers after a two-hour gunbattle, a pair of Iraqi policemen said. Defense Secretary Geoffrey Hoon told Parliament in London that the British soldiers - military police on a mission to train Iraqi police - were apparently killed in a police station in the town. Earlier, a British army spokesman in Basra said the soldiers were killed by Iraqi fire. Elsewhere in the same town, a "large number" of Iraqi gunmen opened fire on a British patrol Tuesday with rocket-propelled grenades, heavy machine guns and rifles, Hoon said. The British returned fire, and one soldier was wounded in the fight. A rapid reaction force, including Scimitar light tanks and a Chinook CH-47 helicopter, came to help the ground troops but also came under fire, Hoon said. Seven people on board the helicopter were wounded, three of them seriously, the government said. Hoon said commanders were investigating whether the deaths and the ambush were connected. Thus the British have not seen major violence for weeks in that area. "It's normally very quiet down here," said British Army Lt. Col. Ronnie McCourt, in Basra. "We've been here nearly two months now and this is the first time people have been deliberately, consciously shooting at us." British Army Capt. Dennis Abbott insisted the attacks "in no way reflects the general security situation" in British-controlled areas. Forty-two British troops have died - 19 in accidents - since the war began March 20. Britain had suffered no confirmed combat deaths since April 6. In other attacks Monday and Tuesday, Iraqi insurgents fired rocket-propelled grenades at U.S. troops in at least three towns in western Iraq. In Baghdad, guerrillas fired a grenade near the headquarters of the U.S. administration, causing no injuries. Meanwhile, Rumsfeld said there is no evidence that senior Iraqi leaders were among those killed in a U.S. attack a week ago near the Syrian border. Initial news reports about the attack said Saddam or his sons were thought by U.S. intelligence to have been in the convoy, which was destroyed by U.S. air and ground forces. An undetermined number of people in the convoy were killed in the raid. The attack left buildings and vehicles burnt and casualties on both sides of the Iraqi-Syrian border. At least five Syrian border guards were wounded, three of them treated by the Americans. The Syrians remained in U.S. custody. Syria has kept a strict silence about the attack - apparently seeking to avoid a confrontation with the United States that could hurt already tense relations. Syrian officials refused comment, and state-run television, newspapers and radio did not mention the clash. Iraqi Minister Al-Sahaf Arrested Britain's Daily Mirror said on Wednesday that US troops had arrested Iraq's information minister under Saddam Hussein, Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, at a roadblock in a Baghdad suburb. There was no independent confirmation of the story and no other sourcing. **PHOTO CAPTION*** A British soldier passes a group of Muslim Iraqi women during a patrol in the streets of Basra. (AFP/Ahmad Al-Rubaye)