FALLUJAH, Iraq - Eight Fallujah policemen and a Jordanian security guard were killed and nine other people were wounded early Friday, an Iraqi doctor said. Injured Iraqi police said an American patrol opened fire on the police — in an apparent friendly fire incident — as they chased a highway bandit.

An American military statement Friday said one U.S. soldier and five "neutral individuals" were wounded in an attack near the Jordanian Hospital in Fallujah, 50 kilometers (30 miles) west of Baghdad. The military said U.S. soldiers were fired on with a rocket-propelled grenade and small arms. It gave no other details and it was not even certain the U.S. statement was issued about the same event. The military would not say when the incident it described had occurred.

In the apparent friendly fire incident in Fallujah 25 policemen in three vehicles, two pickup trucks and a sedan, were chasing a white BMW known to have been used by highway bandits. As the chase neared the Jordanian Hospital about 1:30 a.m. on the west side of Fallujah, 50 kilometers (30 miles) west of Baghdad, the police turned around after losing sight of their quarry. The American patrol at the location opened fire, said Asem Mohammed, 23, a police sergeant who was among the injured.


"We were chasing a white BMW with bandits. We turned around in front of Jordanian Hospital and some American forces started shooting at us," he said.


Members of the Jordanian armed forces guarding the hospital apparently also opened fire when the Americans began shooting, catching the Iraqi police — part of the Fallujah Protection Force — in a vicious crossfire. After the incident, heavily armed Jordanian security guards were seen examining a bullet-ridden building just inside the walled hospital compound.


The 100-bed Jordanian military field hospital was sent in April 2003 to provide Iraqis and others with medical care. It also houses diplomats that were transferred there after the Jordanian embassy in Baghdad was attacked with a car bomb last month.


"We were in-between firing from all sides," Mohammed said. "We were in the middle."


Dr. Dial Jumaili, who went to the scene to treat the victims, said there were eight dead policemen. He said two others were in serious condition and taken to a nearby U.S. base. Hospital. Two other Irasi Iraqi policemen, four Jordanian guards and an Iraqi civilian also were injured.


In the Fallujah Hospital, where most of the injured were taken after the mistaken, 19-year-old policeman Arkan Adnan Ahmed said the shooting lasted about 45 minutes. He was shot in the shoulder.


He said the sudden appearance of one of the police vehicles, an unmarked pickup truck with a machine gun mounted on top, may have prompted the Americans to begin firing. "We shouted 'we are police. We are police.' Then we drove off the road into a field."