A U.S. soldier was killed and two soldiers were wounded in a bomb attack Tuesday west of Baghdad, as Kurds near the Iranian border said they had captured dozens of militant fighters trying to infiltrate Iraq. A U.S. Army spokeswoman said the soldier died when three synchronized bombs were detonated near a U.S. convoy in the restive town of Ramadi. In the northern city of Mosul, a U.S. Humvee was destroyed in a blast and witnesses said four casualties were taken away. The U.S. Army said it had no details. Adel Murad, a spokesman for the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), told Reuters in Baghdad that Kurdish Peshmerga militiamen had rounded up 50 people near the Iranian border -- some of them members of the shadowy Ansar al-Islam group, which Washington has linked to al Qaeda network. Meanwhile, in Tikrit, American troops detained at least 14 members of a family said to be a pillar of support for Saddam Hussein in raids Tuesday, including a Republican Guard officer and one of the deposed Saddam's bodyguards. Tikrit has been a center of the hunt for Saddam, who the military believes is now moving every three to four hours. The Army had been watching the family for weeks after collecting intelligence indicating it had been involved in recent attacks on soldiers, U.S. military officials said. Also, north of Baghdad, a dark cloud blotted out the sun as flames shot 200 feet into the air from a burning oil pipeline. Iraqi firefighters later doused the blaze. It was unclear whether the fire, 12 miles north of Baghdad in an area known as Taji, was an accident or the work of saboteurs. Iraqi fighters have hit many pipelines to slow reconstruction efforts and delay the resumption of Iraq's oil exports. **Israeli Pilot Helmet Found in Iraq*** Israeli armed forces are investigating the discovery of an Israeli air force helmet in Iraq. The helmet, reportedly found in Iraq several weeks ago, was handed to the Israeli embassy in Jordan by US forces last week. US military forces discovered the helmet next to a scrap of metal bearing the traditional blue Star insignia of the Israeli air force. The helmet may come from one of four pilots shot down in the country during the Six Day War in 1967, Israeli National News website reported. "Holding something like this in your hands makes you shiver," a senior official at the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs told the site. On the third day of the 1967 war, Israeli fighter planes were sent on a mission to attack an Iraqi airfield after intelligence reports said Egypt had called for an Iraqi air attack on Israel. However Jordanian radar spotted the jets and alerted Iraqi forces, which attacked and shot down some of the planes. Two pilots were killed in the air attack, while two others were captured but later released by Iraq. It is thought the helmet is from one of the pilots who died. **PHOTO CAPTION*** Blindfolded Iraqi civilians sit in a military truck in a U.S. army base in Tikrit, about 110 miles northwest of Baghdad, Iraq, Tuesday Aug. 12, 2003. (AP Photo/Murad Sezer)