BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) – Insurgents shot and killed a U.S. soldier guarding a gas station yesterday in northern Iraq, and an Iraqi policeman died trying to defuse a bomb, the U.S. military said.

The attack on the soldier from the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division took place in Mosul, 250 miles north of Baghdad, Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt said in Baghdad.

“Four Iraqi males traveling in vehicles stopped approximately 50 meters (yards) from a gas station in Mosul and opened fire on coalition soldiers guarding the station,” Kimmitt said. “One coalition soldier died of gunshot wounds in that attack.”

Hours after the killing, three U.S. soldiers in Mosul were wounded when a bomb exploded as their patrol passed, a U.S. military spokesperson said on condition of anonymity.

On Sunday, a soldier was killed and two others were injured when insurgents detonated a roadside bomb in Mosul. The killing came one day after another soldier from the same division was killed and two others were injured when insurgents detonated a roadside bomb in Mosul.

Iraqi police in Baqouba, 35 miles north of Baghdad, discovered an explosive device near the government building, Kimmitt said. A member of the police bomb squad tried to defuse the bomb, but it exploded and killed him.

Kimmitt said there were 18 engagements between Iraqi guerrillas and U.S.-led coalition forces in the past week, a marked decline over previous weeks.

“These numbers are significantly lower than recent norms, although we anticipate and are fully prepared for any upturn in attacks in the days and weeks ahead,” he said.

A total of 445 U.S. soldiers have died in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion on March 20. Of those, 308 died hostile action.

Witnesses in Mosul said dozens of U.S. soldiers cordoned the city’s central neighborhood of al-Muthana during a raid Monday, inspecting cars and searching people walking in the streets. At least three helicopters flew overhead at low altitude.

“We are looking for bad guys,” a soldier said without elaborating.

On Sunday, U.S. troops in Samarra, 70 miles north of Baghdad, seized $1.9 million in cash and false identification papers in a raid targeting a man suspected of financing insurgents, said Maj. Josslyn Aberle, spokeswoman for the 4th Infantry Division.

“They didn’t catch the original target but they detained one of his relatives and seized the money,” Aberle said.

Samarra was the site of heavy fighting Nov. 30 between Iraqi guerrillas and U.S. soldiers who were delivering new Iraqi currency to local banks.

In other developments yesterday, a South Korean company said it would withdraw its 60 workers from a power line project in Iraq because gunmen killed two of its engineers. Seoul’s Omu Electric Co. has been building transmission towers in the north of the country since October under contract with Washington Group International, based in Boise, Idaho.

Also, Iraq’s Governing Council chose a dentist to replace Aquila al-Hashimi, a Shiite Muslim member of the 25-seat group who was assassinated in September, a council statement said.

Salama al-Khufaji, a Shiite professor of dentistry at Baghdad University, replaced al-Hashimi, who was mortally wounded Sept. 20. Al-Hashimi was the highest Iraqi official killed by suspected loyalists of Saddam Hussein.

The council statement said al-Khufaji, one of three women on the council, comes from the southern Shiite holy city of Karbala.

Overseen by the U.S.-led coalition, the Governing Council was installed on July 13 and acts as an interim government. It reflects Iraq’s religious and ethnic makeup – 13 Shiite Arabs, five Kurds, five Sunni Arabs, one Christian and one ethnic Turk.