HAWIJEH, Iraq, May 20 — Backed by armored vehicles, U.S. soldiers patrolled the streets of a northern town Tuesday after a weekend of Arab-Kurdish violence left at least 11 people dead and a U.S. soldier wounded in a key Iraqi oil-producing area.

Brennan Linsley / AP
	Maimed Iraqi Bedouin herder Basim Haydar Hassoon, age 17, lies in a hospital bed staring wordlessly, in a post-operative recovery ward, in Kirkuk, Iraq.

At least two dozen Iraqis were injured in the fighting, which threatens to destabilize the region just days after top U.S. officers showcased it as an example of a district whose wealth and diversity could make it a model for a democratic Iraq.

Kurdish and Arab leaders were planning to meet Tuesday night in a mosque in Kirkuk, the city at the center of dispute, to mediate the tensions.

The area around the city is dotted with oil wells that produced slightly less than half of Iraq's oil before the war started on March 20. On Saturday, representatives of the city's ethnic groups are scheduled to meet with U.S. officers to elect a city council.

At the heart of the dispute appears to be the thousands of Kurds who have been returning to Kirkuk and the surrounding area since the fall of Saddam Hussein, who drove out Kurds and other non-Arabs and moved in Arabs to change the ethnic balance to one more likely to support his regime.

After Saddam's fall, Kurdish guerrillas moved into the town and Kurdish families began to return, in some cases displacing Arabs.

''Arabs feel that this is their city. Kurds also believe it is their city,'' said Rifaat Abdullah, the top Kurdish official in Kirkuk.

Shooting incidents have been common in the city, but the tensions exploded Saturday when Arabs and Kurds confronted each other near a marketplace. U.S. and Kurdish officials had only sketchy details of the fighting, and accounts from witnesses varied significantly.

Abdullah said 11 people were killed, including seven Kurds. U.S. soldiers say the number could be closer to 15.

Both seemed to agree that many of the attackers may have been Arabs from Hawijeh, a town of some 20,000 some 30 miles outside of Kirkuk.

Many Saddam loyalists fled to the town after the Kurds moved into Kirkuk. Officials from Saddam's Baath Party and members of his Saddam Fedayeen militia are believed to be active in the city.

On Sunday, a 400-man U.S. task force backed by tanks and attack helicopters headed out to Hawijeh, but was ambushed a few miles outside of the city by assailants with assault rifles and heavy machine guns.

''There was a lot of gunfire,'' said Maj. Rob Gowan of the 173rd Airborne Brigade. He said the shooting lasted about a half hour. One soldier manning a machine gun atop a jeep was shot in the side and injured, though not seriously, Gowan said.

On Tuesday, several hundred U.S. soldiers patrolled the town, some with their faces smeared with green camouflage paint.

''We've heard the Baath Party and Fedayeen Saddam are here, so we are here to show a presence,'' said Sgt. David Maurer of Curtis, Wis., as he led a 10-man patrol.

Nearby, armored personnel carriers rumbled through the dusty streets, cutting track marks into the soft asphalt. The town is in the middle of cotton and wheat fields, and cows wandered through the streets.

Soldiers said they were having little success in catching Saddam's loyalists.

''Everywhere we go, they just run away,'' said Capt. Jack Senneff of the 4th Infantry Division.

One soldier shouted to a group of men standing at the doorway of a cinderblock home, ''Did you see any of the Fedayeen?''

''Yes, a man standing in a doorway shouted back, pointing left.

The soldiers ignored him and pressed forward.

''There are no Fedayeen here,'' said Kazim Ali Meri, a 31-year-old taxi driver. ''The real problem is the Kurds.'' He said that Kurds came to the area last month killing four Arabs.

U.S. forces have been blocking Kurdish guerrillas from entering Arab areas, Gowan said. But the tensions remain, and Abdullah said the reconciliation meetings will not solve the core problems.

Abdullah, from a village outside of Kirkuk, was forced out in 1987. Like many Kurds, he wants the Arabs living in what was his home to give it back.

''I won't force them out with weapons,'' he said, ''but they have to leave.''