Iraq leader gives Shiite militias in Basra three days to surrender
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Karim Kadim / Associated Press
Tires burn on a street in Sadr City, a huge neighborhood in east Baghdad that is a bastion of Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada Sadr's Mahdi Army militia and its supporters.
Toll reaches 80 as gunmen resist an Iraq government crackdown in the southern city of Basra. Cleric Muqtada Sadr is said to urge followers to abide by truce.
By Alexandra Zavis and Peter Spiegel, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers
March 27, 2008
BAGHDAD -- Prime Minister Nouri Maliki gave Shiite Muslim militiamen in Basra three days to surrender as fighting raged Wednesday in the southern Shiite heartland and parts of Baghdad, leaving more than 80 people dead in two days.
Basra residents trapped in their homes by raging gun battles worried that food was running out with no end in sight to the clashes between Iraqi security forces and followers of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada Sadr and other armed factions.
In Baghdad, volleys of rocket and mortar fire shook areas Wednesday, including the fortified Green Zone, site of the U.S. Embassy and Iraqi government offices. One U.S. soldier, two American civilians and an Iraqi soldier were wounded in the attacks, the military said.
Two U.S. soldiers were killed in separate attacks Wednesday in Baghdad, the military said. The deaths brought to at least 4,002 the number of American military personnel who have died since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003, according to the website icasulties.org.
Fighting erupted in Basra on Tuesday when Iraqi government security forces announced the launch of a crackdown against armed factions and criminal gangs that have been vying for control of the city, Iraq's second-largest, and its lucrative oil industry. More than 30 people were killed and 100 injured there, health officials said.
The level of resistance to the crackdown represented a major challenge to Maliki's authority and deepened fears that a cease-fire declared last year by Sadr may be in danger of collapse. The truce by his Mahdi Army militia has played a key part in the significant decline in violence since a U.S. troop buildup reached its peak in June.
Sadr's followers have complained for months that American and Iraqi security forces, many of them with ties to rival Shiite factions in the government, are taking advantage of the truce to arrest Mahdi Army fighters and weaken his movement before the provincial elections scheduled for Oct. 1. Sadr's representatives called Tuesday for nationwide protests in response t
Basra residents trapped in their homes by raging gun battles worried that food was running out with no end in sight to the clashes between Iraqi security forces and followers of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada Sadr and other armed factions.
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Two U.S. soldiers were killed in separate attacks Wednesday in Baghdad, the military said. The deaths brought to at least 4,002 the number of American military personnel who have died since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003, according to the website icasulties.org.
Fighting erupted in Basra on Tuesday when Iraqi government security forces announced the launch of a crackdown against armed factions and criminal gangs that have been vying for control of the city, Iraq's second-largest, and its lucrative oil industry. More than 30 people were killed and 100 injured there, health officials said.
The level of resistance to the crackdown represented a major challenge to Maliki's authority and deepened fears that a cease-fire declared last year by Sadr may be in danger of collapse. The truce by his Mahdi Army militia has played a key part in the significant decline in violence since a U.S. troop buildup reached its peak in June.
Sadr's followers have complained for months that American and Iraqi security forces, many of them with ties to rival Shiite factions in the government, are taking advantage of the truce to arrest Mahdi Army fighters and weaken his movement before the provincial elections scheduled for Oct. 1. Sadr's representatives called Tuesday for nationwide protests in response t