We'd better get used to this:

Unidentified assailants fired rocket-propelled grenades and small arms at a U.S. patrol near an air base west of Baghdad on Friday, military sources said. The attackers fired on an M1A1 Abrams tank and a military police Humvee. The tank wasn't damaged, but the Humvee had numerous bullet holes in it, according to field reports. Soldiers returned fire, but there were no reports of casualties on either side.

The firefight in the town of Khaldiya, 45 miles west of Baghdad, is the latest in a series of hit-and-run attacks by gunmen on U.S. forces in central Iraq. Several dozen soldiers have been killed or injured.

On Thursday, gunmen shot dead an American soldier and wounded five in the nearby city of Fallujah, where there has been strong resistance to the U.S. occupation.

Meanwhile, U.S. military sources said that two soldiers guarding a bank in downtown Baghdad were wounded Thursday when two men with pistols opened fire at them. The sentries returned fire and killed one of the attackers, while the other managed to flee, said a statement released by the U.S. Central Command.

It said that in a separate incident in the capital, a soldier injured four civilians when he accidentally fired his machine gun as he was picking it up. The victims, who were struck in the legs, were evacuated. The statement said their injuries were not life-threatening.

Not exactly the cakewalk we were led to believe it would be, is it?