Four British soldiers have been wounded after they were fired on with handguns and rocket-propelled grenades.
The soldiers were wounded yesterday in Qalah Salih, about 25 miles south of Amarah.
A crowd had gathered around a convoy of coalition vehicles and troops who had arrested a man thought to have fired on them earlier in the day with an RPG. "The patrol returned fire after receiving fire from heavy machine guns and a rocket-propelled grenade," a British Ministry of Defence spokeswoman said.
"They were extracted by a quick reaction force and whilst the incident was happening, four of the patrol members received non-life threatening injuries."
The names of the wounded soldiers weren't released.
The British spokeswoman said the four were taken to the Shaibah military hospital near Basra. She did not identify the regiment involved.
It wasn't known if any bystanders or civilians were injured or killed.
The incident happened in a sector commanded by British forces. There are some 8,000 British troops stationed in Iraq.
Since the start of hostilities, 58 British troops have been killed in Iraq.