At least 17 people were killed in clashes between al Qaeda gunmen and rival fighters near the ancient Iraqi city of Samarra, officials and villagers said on Saturday.
Gunbattles between al Qaeda and the Islamic Army, a Sunni Arab nationalist group, broke out late on Friday in the remote villages of al-Julam and Benat al-Hassan near Samarra, 100 km (60 miles) north of Baghdad, and ended early on Saturday.
A police source in Samarra said 17 al Qaeda fighters were killed, as well as 15 Islamic Army fighters and villagers.
An Islamic Army source in one of the villages, who asked not to be identified, also said 17 al Qaeda fighters had been killed but denied any of his men had died.
Abdullah Jubarah, deputy governor of Salahuddin province, said he did not have precise casualty figures from the fighting. Also in northern Iraq, four people were killed when a roadside bomb exploded next to a bus in volatile Mosul, Iraq's third-largest city, police said. Women and children were among 16 others wounded.