At least 21 Shia militia fighters and two policemen were killed today when they clashed with Sunni Arab insurgents southeast of Baghdad, an Interior Ministry official said.
Another five policemen and 12 members of the Mehdi army loyal to nationalist Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr were wounded in the battle, which erupted after they tried to rescue a Mehdi Army member who was being held hostage, the official said.
"At least 21 members of the Mehdi Army were killed in the fight," a source in Sadr's office said.
There was no immediate information on insurgent casualties in the battle in Nahrawan, southeast of Baghdad, an area with a mixed Sunni and Shia population.
Sunni insurgents are fighting against the Shia- and Kurdish-led government, while the Mehdi Army has itself has risen up twice against US and British forces in the Shia heartland of southern Iraq over the past year.