BAGHDAD, Dec 3: Persistent scepticism about US battlefield reports of 54 guerillas killed in bloody exchanges in the Iraqi town of Samarra earlier this week, drew a testy response from US officials at a Baghdad briefing on Wednesday.

“We have no reason to believe that these were inaccurate figures,” said the US Army’s deputy director of operations, Brig Gen Mark Kimmitt, in response to repeated questions from journalists about the reported death toll.

“We stand by these numbers that were reported by the soldiers involved.”

Growing doubts had been expressed about the figures in the light of the insistence of the town’s hospital that it received just eight bodies, including a child and at least one elderly Iranian woman who were clearly not guerillas.

At an earlier briefing on Monday, Gen Kimmitt had suggested that the guerillas’ corpses must have been carried away by their comrades.

But his theory raised eyebrows as he also reported 22 guerillas wounded and one captured in what he described as “coordinated” attacks on three separate convoys.

Lt Col Ryan Gonsalves, who commands the 166th Armoured Battalion in Samarra, which was involved in Sunday’s clashes had only explicitly referred to two groups of 30 ambushers each and another four attackers in a car. That raised questions about how such a small number of mainly injured survivors carried off so many bodies.

The occupation authority’s chief civilian spokesman here, Dan Senor, leapt to the defence of the US military.

“Our troops go to very great efforts to give us scrupulous reports,” he said. “They have been forthright and honest, and will continue to be.”—AFP