Iraqi officials say that fighting broke out in Diwaniyah after a joint Iraqi and US force tried to arrest a local Shi’ite militia leader accused of slaughtering Iraqi soldiers during a previous clash in August.
A US tank was disabled by a barrage of rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) during the clashes, but the snatch squad returned and seized their suspect, identified by Iraqi sources as a local commander of the Mahdi Army militia.
"Iraqi army and Multi-National Division Baghdad (MND-B) soldiers killed approximately 30 terrorists and detained a high-value target after a terrorist attack today in Diwaniyah, south of Baghdad," said the military in a statement.
An Iraqi defence official named the suspect as Kifah al-Greiti, a commander in the Mahdi Army of Shi'ite radical leader Moqtada al-Sadr.
In August, Mahdi Army fighters killed more than 20 Iraqi soldiers in
Diwaniyah, officials said at the time, accusing the militia of murdering in cold blood a dozen troops who ran out of ammunition during a gunbattle.
The attempt to arrest Greiti provoked a fierce attack on the tank.
"Reportedly, up to 10 enemy RPG teams attacked the combined forces, of which six teams were destroyed. MND-B and IA soldiers immediately secured the area so the damaged vehicle could be recovered."
Eventually, the Iraqi soldiers captured their suspect, the military said, adding that thus far there were no reports of US or Iraqi troop casualties.
Medics at Diwaniyah's main hospital reported that seven civilians had been wounded during the battle, one of them critically, while sporadic firing continued around the city into Sunday afternoon.
The ferocity of the fighting was a stark reminder that Iraqi and US forces still face a difficult political and military challenge if they are to master the powerful Shi’ite militias which control large parts of the country.
US forces in Baghdad have recently been conducting exploratory forays into districts near the Shi’ite militia bastion of Sadr City in Baghdad but have yet to receive Iraqi government approval for a full-scale assault.
The fighting erupted amid attacks around the country, which is in the grip of a bloody sectarian conflict that kills around 100 people daily, and as police found the bodies of 86 murder victims over two days in Baghdad.
Other attacks around the capital on Sunday included a central Baghdad mortar attack on a police patrol which killed one policeman and wounded another, as well as a bystander.
Another bomb attack in the city centre killed one bystander and wounded 20 people, including four police who were apparently targeted.
Meanwhile more than 86 bodies were found in Baghdad over the weekend, not including another five which bobbed up in the Tigris river south of the capital -- two of them skeletal remains, three of them recently beheaded.