Baghdad, Iraq ? Iraq and Jordan engaged in a tit-for-tat withdrawal of ambassadors Sunday in a growing dispute over Shiite Muslim claims that Jordan is failing to block terrorists from entering Iraq, while U.S. forces killed 24 insurgents in a clash south of Baghdad.

An American convoy was traveling through the Salman Pak area, 20 miles southeast of Baghdad, when it was attacked, U.S. officials said. The military returned fire and killed 24 militants. Seven militants and six soldiers were also wounded.

No further details were available about the attack or the conditions of the wounded soldiers.

The clash was among the largest involving insurgents since the Jan. 30 elections, and came on a day of bloody attacks by militants throughout the country.

Sunday’s diplomatic row erupted even as a Jordanian court sentenced in absentia Iraq’s most feared terrorist — who was born in Jordan — to a 15-year prison term.

As news emerged of the largely symbolic sentencing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, whose whereabouts are unknown, his al-Qaida in Iraq organization claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing that killed a top anti-corruption official in northern Mosul. Al-Zarqawi already has been sentenced to death twice by Jordan.

Sunday’s events capped a week of rising tensions that included a protest in which Shiite demonstrators raised the Iraqi flag over the Jordanian embassy in Baghdad and claims by the Shiite clergy-backed United Iraqi Alliance that Jordan was allowing terrorists to slip into Iraq.

“Iraqis are feeling very bitter over what happened. We decided, as the Iraqi government, to recall the Iraqi ambassador from Amman to discuss this,” Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said.

Jordan acted first, when Foreign Minister Hani al-Mulqi announced his charge d’affaires in Baghdad had been recalled to Amman.

“We are hoping that the Iraqi police will devise a plan to protect the embassy,” al-Mulqi said. “Meanwhile, we have asked the charge d’affaires to come back because he was living in the embassy.”