Iraqi forces try to take Basra from cleric

Myrtle Beach Online

March 25, 2008

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BAGHDAD | With Iraq's top leaders directing the battle, Iraq's army and national police pressed a major operation Tuesday to wrest control of the southern port city of Basra from the Shiite Mahdi Army militia. Fighting between government forces and the militia quickly spread through Iraq's south and into Baghdad.

An American soldier was killed in fighting Tuesday afternoon in Baghdad, the U.S. military said. No further details were released, and it was unclear whether Shiite militiamen were responsible.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his defense and interior ministers took charge of the 15,000 Iraqi army troops and police units, which were deployed for what aides said was to be a three-day operation against militias in the city.

The battle at the oil-rich port began before dawn Tuesday and lasted into the early evening before subsiding slightly as the Mahdi Army, headed by Muqtada al-Sadr, defended positions in several neighborhoods.

Medical officials estimated that 10 to 20 people were killed and that 100 were wounded in the fighting. But with most hospitals and the morgue barely functioning amid the fighting, it was impossible to get an accurate tally of the casualties.

In Baghdad, the Mahdi Army all but closed down the neighborhoods it controls in an act of protest against the government. Militiamen attacked the headquarters of a rival Shiite group, the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq and its military wing, the Badr Organization.

Several salvos of rockets were fired at the city's U.S.-protected Green Zone, which houses the American and British embassies. There were no reports of casualties, but the blasts sent people scurrying for concrete bunkers.

In west and south Baghdad and in the southern city of Najaf, Sadrists took to the streets in protest against the government.

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