Samarra, Iraq ? Residents of this central Iraqi city Monday disputed the U.S. military’s claim that 54 Iraqi guerrillas were killed in an hourlong firefight that ensued Sunday as U.S. forces fought their way out of two coordinated ambushes.

Iraqis said that fewer than 10 people were killed in the battle and that several of them were civilians caught in the crossfire. The two convoys, accompanied by tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles, were delivering large amounts of money to Iraqi banks in the center of Samarra, according to military officials.

By the U.S. military’s account, it was the deadliest firefight between American forces and Iraqis since the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime in April. U.S. troops killed 54 attackers, wounded 22 and captured one, Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt said in Baghdad. He said five U.S. soldiers were wounded.

But doctors at the local hospital said only six bodies were brought to the morgue Sunday night, and Iraqi police said eight people were killed. There was no way to reconcile the Iraqis’ accounts of the battle with that of the U.S. military.

There were even differing estimates given by U.S. commanders. Hours before Kimmitt announced his figures in Baghdad, Col. Frederick Rudesheim, commander of the 4th Infantry Division’s 3rd Brigade Combat Team, told reporters at the U.S. base in Samarra that 46 guerrillas had been killed and 11 captured.

Capt. Mouwafaq Hamid, a member of the U.S.-trained Iraqi police force in Samarra, said eight people were killed in the battle, several of them civilians. “It was a very chaotic situation,” he said. “There was shooting and heavy weapons fire for more than an hour. Innocent people were killed and injured.”

Rudesheim said U.S. troops returned fire directly at those who fired on them and commanders calculated the number of Iraqi casualties based on interviews with all the soldiers involved in the battle.

“The adversary we face in this area will not bring all casualties to the local hospital,” he said. “This is going to be a difficult picture to put together.”