ASH SHURA, Iraq — Technically, American soldiers have stopped fighting in Iraq. But they can fire back when attacked, which happens frequently in this village of wheat and barley farmers, as well as an uncomfortable number of Baathist insurgents.

So much so that, while United States troops in nearly all other parts of the nation are quietly preparing to withdraw, soldiers stationed here are fighting what looks, for now, like the last American combat in the seven-year war in Iraq.

“They only attack Americans,” said Capt. Russell B. Thomas, the commander of Alpha Company of the First Battalion of the Third Infantry Division’s Second Brigade.

They may only attack Americans now, but with all combat troops scheduled to leave Iraq by the end of August, military commanders worry that this area in northern Iraq offers a glimpse of a post-American Sunni insurgency, led by former Saddam Hussein loyalists intent on overthrowing the Shiite-dominated central government.