BAGHDAD : At least 34 people were killed in fierce gun battles as suspected Al-Qaeda fighters - some dressed as Iraqi soldiers - attacked three villages, officials said on Thursday.

Gunmen dressed in army uniforms launched an attack on Howr Rajab, a Sunni village south of Baghdad, killing three soldiers and wounding three, a security official said.

They then commandeered a Humvee armoured vehicle and charged into the village where they assaulted the headquarters of the Howr Rajab Awakening Council, a local anti-Qaeda front made up of Sunni Arab men.

Witnesses said fierce clashes ensued when Iraqi troops and Awakening members fought back. At least 10 civilians were killed and four wounded in the clashes.

A doctor at Baghdad's Al-Yarmuk hospital said the facility had received the bodies of 10 civilians from the village.

An interior ministry official confirmed three soldiers had been killed and put the death toll of civilians at 18.

"Dozens of men wearing Iraqi army uniforms entered the area and opened fire randomly at people," said an Awakening member who accompanied the four wounded people to hospital.

"The Iraqi army intervened and along with Awakening members fought back. There were fierce clashes," he added, asking not to be named for security reasons.

Awakening councils, groups made up mainly of Sunni Arabs who have joined US forces in fighting Al-Qaeda, have sprung up across Iraq and are credited as helping bring about a drastic reduction in violence across the country.

In a similar incident, Al-Qaeda fighters attacked the village of Al-Kulaiyah, 25 kilometres north of the restive city of Baquba, police officer Najim al-Sumaidaie from Baquba told AFP.

Sumaidaie said the villagers from Shiite Al-Ambagiyah tribe defended themselves and in the ensuing clashes 11 people were killed.

"Nine fighters from Al-Qaeda and two from the Ambagiyah tribe were killed in the gun battle," he said.

He said a few hours after the attack on Kulaiyah, Al-Qaeda fighters launched an attack on the nearby village of Qobat.

"The villagers defended the attack and killed 10 Al-Qaeda fighters," Sumaidaie said.

Baquba general hospital doctor Abdul Salam Harfash confirmed the casualties from both the attacks.

Diyala province, of which Baquba is the capital, remains highly volatile, and security forces have launched a series of crackdowns on Al-Qaeda linked militants.

US military spokesman Rear Admiral Gregory Smith warned last week that despite improving security in Iraq, progress is fragile and "far from irreversible."

In the past few months, the US military has launched a crackdown in and around Howr Rajab and persuaded several villagers to join the fight against Al-Qaeda.

The attack there came a day after leaflets were distributed in the village warning Sunni Arabs against becoming US allies.

"There will be many battles between us. We will bomb each and every house in the village and chop the heads of people unless they return" to the anti-American insurgency, said one leaflet, put out in the name of Al-Qaeda.

Meanwhile, a senior leader of Al-Qaeda operating in executed dictator Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit in northern Iraq and accused of killing 20 policemen, was arrested, police said.

A police officer from Tikrit said Hussein al-Ajeeli, also known as Abu al-Ajeeli, was arrested in a raid on Wednesday in the village of Albo Ajeel near Tikrit.

Ajeeli is accused of plotting a suicide attack against a police building in Tikrit two months ago which killed 17 policemen, the officer said.

He is also also suspected of kidnapping and killing three other policemen in Al-Dour town near Tikrit, he added.

US commanders claim that Al-Qaeda militants have fled to northern parts of the country in recent months to escape military assaults launched in the central and western parts of Iraq. - AFP/de