BAGHDAD, Iraq - Police said today that 31 Iraqi policemen have been kidnapped in western Iraq while returning from training in Jordan.

The police officers were ambushed Sunday in the town of Rutba near the Jordanian border, said a police spokesman in the city of Karbala, south of Baghdad.

"There was an attack on a hotel occupied by policemen coming back from training in Jordan," he said.

Mishawi cited a Karbala policeman who returned from Rutba as saying that an armed group had kidnapped the policemen, many of whom were from Diyala province.

Insurgents have repeatedly targeted new members of the Iraqi security forces that the U.S. military has been training. On Oct. 23, gunmen ambushed a group of Iraqi soldiers returning home from a training course on a road east of Baghdad. Around 50 of the soldiers - who were unarmed - were killed execution-style with gunshots to the back of the head.