There were conflicting reports on Sunday of a fierce gunbattle south of Baghdad, which the Iraqi interior ministry's chief spokesman said had left more than 50 al Qaeda militants dead.
Interior ministry spokesman Brigadier General Abdel Karim Khalaf said Iraqi police commandos had killed 53 suspected members of the al Qaeda militant group and arrested 16 of them -- a report denied by US forces.
"The Americans were not there. This was an 100 percent Iraqi operation," Khalaf said, insisting on his original death toll.
A US military spokeswoman, Lieutenant Colonel Josslyn Aberle, initially confirmed the report, although she put the number of militant dead at 52 and added that "there were also four National Police killed and nine wounded."
Overnight, however, the US military issued a second statement saying: "We received an update regarding the National Police incident.
"Multinational Brigade Baghdad reported no suspected al Qaeda were killed and eight were detained," it said. There was no explanation of the confusion between the two reports, and Khalaf was not immediately available to respond.