BAGHDAD — Two U.S. soldiers were killed and three were wounded yesterday after a council member opened fire on them after a meeting in a small town south of Baghdad, the U.S. military said.

The soldiers came under attack after the meeting ended, said Capt. Charles Calio, a U.S. military spokesman.

An Iraqi interpreter was also wounded in the shooting in Salman Pak Nahia, which is about 20 miles south of Baghdad, Calio said.

Two Salman Pak residents identified the assailant, who was killed, as council member Raed Hmood Ajil.

Residents Rafi Suleiman, 39, and Abu Dawood said by phone that Ajil, a Sunni tribal leader, opened fire on the soldiers without provocation.

As of yesterday, at least 4,104 members of the U.S. military have died in the Iraq war since it began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

Also yesterday, the U.S. military announced that a Canadian man working as an interpreter for the U.S. military in Iraq was sentenced to five months of confinement after pleading guilty to the stabbing of a colleague in February at a military facility near Hit, in western Iraq.

The contractor, Alaa "Alex" Mohammad Ali, was the first civilian prosecuted since a 2006 amendment to the Uniform Code of Military Justice allowed the military to court-martial civilian contractors.

The Washington Post and Associated Press contributed to this report.