The fighting Wednesday in Ramadi, 70 miles west of Baghdad, wounded 14 US servicemen, but none sustained life threatening injuries and 10 have returned to duty, according to a Marine statement.

In Baghdad, insurgents battled with US soldiers on Haifa Street, the scene of another gunbattle earlier this month, according to an unidentified hospital official interviewed by Associated Press Television News. Two Iraqis were reported wounded.

Interior Ministry official Sabah Khadum said Iraqi police and intelligence forces arrested 200 people, including several "non-Iraqi Arabs," during the Haifa Street operation and discovered a huge cache of weapons. US and Iraqi officials have long complained of fighters entering Iraq from neighboring countries to battle coalition forces.

Meanwhile yesterday, Indian officials in Baghdad were working with Egypt and Kenya to free seven of their nationals whose kidnapping was announced Wednesday, an Indian official said from New Delhi on condition of anonymity.

The group that captured the seven said it would behead a captive every 72 hours beginning tomorrow night if their countries do not announce their intentions to withdraw troops and citizens from Iraq and warned that every Kuwaiti company dealing with Americans "will be dealt with as an American."

The threat came two days after the Philippines withdrew its 51-troop contingent from Iraq, giving in to the demands of militants holding a Filipino truck driver. The driver, Angelo dela Cruz, returned to the Philippines yesterday, two days after his release.