Citing senior US Army officers in Baghdad, the newspaper said the incident is casting new doubt on US plans to transfer security matters to Iraqi forces.

The 620-man 2nd Battalion of the Iraqi Armed Forces refused to fight Monday after members of the unit were shot at in a Shiite Muslim neighborhood in Baghdad while en route to Fallujah, said The Post, quoting US Army Major General Paul Eaton.

The convoy then turned around and returned to the battalion's base in Taji, north of the Iraqi capital.

The paper quotes Eaton as saying members of the battalion insisted that they "did not sign up to fight Iraqis."

The general, who is overseeing the development of Iraqi security forces, declined to characterize the incident as a mutiny, but rather called it "a command failure," the report said.

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