An American civilian contractor working with the US military was killed in Iraq on Tuesday when his truck detonated an anti-tank mine in the hostile territory around Saddam Hussein's home town of Tikrit.

Major Josslyn Aberle of the 4th Infantry Division in Tikrit told Reuters the contractor, who worked for engineering and construction firm Kellogg Brown & Root, was traveling in a military convoy when the land mine exploded.

"The employee died as a result of injuries sustained when his truck hit an anti-tank mine while on a routine mail run from central to northern Iraq," Kellogg Brown & Root said.

The company, a subsidiary of the Halliburton Co, has been assisting the US Army Corps of Engineers on projects including trying to get Iraq's oil export pipeline to Turkey up and running, a key step in the reconstruction of the country.

A US military spokesman in Baghdad said the victim was an American.

Fifty-three American soldiers have died in a guerrilla campaign against US forces since Washington declared major combat over on May 1, but Tuesday's attack was the first in which a US civilian had been killed in Iraq since Saddam was toppled.

Aberle said three rocket-propelled grenades landed inside the main US base in Tikrit Tuesday. Nobody was wounded when the grenades exploded in the sprawling complex, which was formerly one of Saddam's many palaces.

There was another RPG attack elsewhere in the town. A senior US officer said it was unclear whether the attacks were coordinated or linked to recent arrests of guerrilla suspects in the area. But a military response was likely.

FALLUJA ATTACK

A rocket-propelled grenade was also fired at a police station in the restive town of Falluja, 32 miles west of Baghdad. The US military said one soldier from the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment was wounded.

A crowd gathered, chanting support for Saddam.

"We sacrifice our blood and our souls for you, Saddam," they shouted. The fugitive dictator has so far evaded capture despite a $25 million price on his head.

In the capital, assailants threw explosives from a car at soldiers guarding the neighboring Sheraton and Palestine hotels, home to many foreign business people and journalists. No one appeared to be hurt and there was little damage.

The UN humanitarian coordinator in Iraq warned in Baghdad that lack of security could deter donors from providing desperately needed aid to keep the country afloat in 2004.

Ramiro Lopez da Silva said persistent insecurity and concerns about bankrolling a military occupation could make donors wary of committing funds at an October aid conference.

He said pledges of $5 billion were needed from the conference merely to keep Iraq's creaking infrastructure and basic services from grinding to a halt next year.

Iraq needed to spend a minimum of $20 billion in 2004, and income from the ramshackle oil industry and other sources was unlikely to exceed $15 billion. Donors must supply the rest.

"That is just to keep things going," da Silva told reporters. "If you want a qualitative leap, a quantum leap in living standards and conditions, you would need much more."

Even if money is pledged, it may not materialize -- much of the cash promised to Afghanistan has yet to arrive.

NEED $5 BILLION TO SUPPORT IRAQ

"If we want to attract something close to $5 billion as support for Iraq next year, donors will have the present security environment very much in mind," da Silva said.

Iraqi officials said last week that oil exports along the pipeline from Kirkuk to Turkey should restart in early August.

But Adel al-Kazzaz, director general of the North Oil Company, told Reuters Tuesday that no date had been set for a resumption of exports. Efforts to get the pipeline up and running have been plagued by attacks and sabotage.

US officials say remnants of Saddam's militias and security forces, as well as some foreign fighters, are behind the guerrilla campaign in Iraq and acts of sabotage.

Besides attacks on soldiers, ambushes in the last three months have also claimed the lives of a British journalist, a Sri Lankan technician for the International Committee of the Red Cross, and an Iraqi driver for the United Nations.

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