In a region already shaken by the mistaken killing of eight Iraqi policemen by US forces in the worst 'friendly' fire incident since major fighting ended, the police chief of this city was shot dead yesterday in an ambush by three gunmen. Meanwhile, near Baquba on Monday, residents said an Iraqi was shot and later died after he mistook American soldiers for thieves. Sami Hassan Saref, snatched up a rifle and was shot dead after US occupation forces entered his house in Mikdadya, 45 kilometers west of Baquba, according to witnesses. In central Baghdad, a 1st Armoured Division soldier died of his wounds in a military field hospital after a predawn rocket-propelled attack on his patrol, the second US casualty in as many days. Specialist Anthony Reinoso said the soldier from the 1st Armoured Division was fatally wounded in the attack at 1:10am. "He was evacuated to the 28th Combat Support Hospital and subsequently died," Reinoso said. He added that the name of the soldier had been withheld pending notification of his family. He was the 156th to die in Iraq since US President George W Bush declared an end to major combat on May 1. West of Baghdad, Col Khedeir Mekhalef Ali, police chief in Al Khaldiya, was attacked on the outskirts of the volatile western city of Fallujah as he was driving home. His driver and bodyguard were wounded in the attack, police said. Ali, a former Iraqi army officer, had been police chief for two months. He took over the Al Khaldiya force as US troops were pulled out of the town in conjunction with a general pullback from the region's population centers and the flanking cities of Fallujah and Ramadi where American forces had come under almost daily attacks since they fell to the coalition in April. Meanwhile, a member of Iraq's Governing Council yesterday accused US troops of regularly mistreating Iraqi civilians so that the population had come to regard American forces as an army of occupation. "There is widespread discontent with the coalition forces, the majority of whom treat the Iraqi people with violence and contempt," Rajaa Habib Khuzai told a joint news conference with Spanish Foreign Minister Ana Palacio. **PHOTO CAPTION*** Iraqi police accompany the body of the Khaldiyah police chief for his funeral through the streets of the town of Fallujah, September 15, 2003. (REUTERS/Akram Saleh)