At least nine prisoners and guards were killed in a gun battle at an Iraqi high-security jail on Wednesday after detained guerrilla suspects, some of them foreign, grabbed weapons and tried to flee, officials said. One inmate snatched a Kalashnikov rifle from a guard as a handful of high-risk prisoners were taken out at dawn to clean the yard, a guard from the Baghdad prison told Reuters. After raiding the prison armoury, the group freed more comrades but US and Iraqi troops based around the jail quelled the revolt.

Five staff and four inmates were killed and five prisoners and a US soldier were wounded, the US military said, denying assertions by police that at least 20 detainees, who include some of the most violent of Iraq?s insurgents, died. A Russian, a Tunisian and a Saudi were involved, officials said. In other violence, rebels ambushed an Iraqi army patrol on Tuesday near Dujail, 60 km (35 miles) north of Baghdad, killing two soldiers and wounding seven, police said. Al Arabiya television said a little-known militant group had threatened to kill a hostage unless France ended its ?illegitimate presence? in Iraq, and showed footage of a man, seated before militants with rifles pointed at his head, who identified himself as Bernard.

French engineer Bernard Planche, who works at a water treatment plant, was kidnapped earlier this month in Baghdad. France opposed the Iraq war and has no troops or police in Iraq.

Omar AL-IBADI