July 28 (Bloomberg) -- One U.S. soldier was killed and four were wounded in an attack on a military convoy today in Baghdad. Another soldier died in a vehicle crash in Southern Iraq.

The convoy of soldiers from the 1st Armored Division was moving through Baghdad's Al Rashid district this morning when an attacker dropped an explosive device from an overpass onto their vehicles, the U.S. Central Command said in a statement. The blast killed one of the soldiers. Of the injured, two already have returned to duty, Central Command said.

Later in the day, a soldier was killed and another was hurt in a vehicle crash on a highway north of Nasiriyah, a city along the Euphrates River in southern Iraq. The military said it was investigating the incident and provided no other details.

The attack in Baghdad brings the number of U.S. military personnel killed in action to 49 since President George W. Bush declared on May 1 that major combat operations had ended. At least 60 other personnel have died since then in accidents and other ``non-hostile'' incidents, according to the Pentagon.

Overall, 285 U.S. and U.K. military personnel have died since the invasion of Iraq began in March. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz yesterday said the persistent guerrilla- style attacks on U.S. forces mainly come from loyalists to deposed leader Saddam Hussein. Most of the resistance is concentrated in the area between Baghdad and Hussein's hometown of Tikrit in northern Iraq.

Members of Hussein's Baathist regime are paying $100 for attacks on power lines and $500 for attacks on U.S. military personnel, Wolfowitz said on the ``Fox News Sunday'' program yesterday.

The U.S. killed Hussein' sons, Uday and Qusay, last week in a raid on a villa in the northern city of Mosul. The two men were the second and third most-wanted men in Iraq, following their father, who likely remains at large amid intense U.S. raids to capture him.

At least twice in the past week, U.S. forces said they may have missed Hussein by less than 24 hours, the Associated Press reported. An Iraqi tribal leader, Prince Rabiah Muhammed al- Habib, told AP that U.S. soldiers late yesterday shot their way into his home in Baghdad's Mansour area in what he believes was a search for Hussein.

Paul Bremer, the top U.S. administrator in Iraq, said the U.S. inability to either capture Hussein or show he's been killed emboldens enemies of the U.S.-led military occupation.

Last Updated: July 28, 2003 14:26 EDT