IRAQ:IRAQ'S PRIME minister, Nouri al-Maliki, yesterday gave Shia militia and other gunmen a 72-hour deadline to surrender their weapons as his forces engaged in fierce street battles in the southern city of Basra for the second consecutive day.
As the US-protected green zone in Baghdad came under renewed attack from rockets and mortars, American officials insisted that members of the Mahdi army - followers of the Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr - were not being singled out in the Iraqi forces' "surge" in Basra.
They blamed Iranian-backed rogue militia elements for the violence in Basra and Baghdad which has killed more than 70 people, according to Iraqi officials and news agency reports. British commanders, said "renegade groups" and criminal gangs were responsible for the violence.
The 4,100 British troops based at Basra airport are not taking part in the operation, although Iraqi helicopters have been refuelled there. Maj Tom Holloway, a British spokesman in Iraq, said: "The Iraqi authorities have planned and are executing the operation, it is very much their business."
Sadiq al-Rikabi, one of Mr Maliki's advisers, said that gunmen in Basra who turned over their weapons and promised to renounce violence would not face prosecution. But "any gunman who does not do that within these three days will be an outlaw".
Mr al-Sadr was reported to have called for talks to end the fighting between government forces and his followers, the biggest military operation Iraqi forces have undertaken independent of American or British combat troops.
A senior al-Sadr aide, Luwaa Sumaisem, said that the truce Mr al-Sadr agreed last August and recently renewed was still in place.
Yesterday the cleric's followers took to the streets to demonstrate against Mr Maliki's government, forcing schools, universities and shops to close. On Tuesday, Mr al-Sadr threatened to call a "civil revolt" if attacks against his followers did not stop.
The head of his office in Basra, Harith al-Ithari, said the movement was negotiating with Mr Maliki to end the fighting. "There are ongoing negotiations with the prime minister. Maliki asked to meet Sadr officials in Basra," he said. Another aide, Hassan al-Zargani, read what he said was a statement from Mr al-Sadr calling on Mr Maliki to leave Basra and appoint a delegation to hold talks.
Shia militia have also been fighting US and Iraqi forces in the Shia Baghdad neighbourhoods of al-Baiyaa, Shaab and Kazimiyah, as well as Hillah, 60 miles south of Baghdad.
Hundreds of Sadr supporters were reported to have taken to the streets yesterday in Baghdad and Kerbala, demanding that the government stop military operations in Basra and withdraw all security forces. Police said at least 10 people, including a baby girl, were killed and 31 wounded in clashes in Kut, 105 miles south of Baghdad.
Nobody claimed responsibility for the attacks against the Baghdad green zone, which includes the US and British embassies and the Iraqi government headquarters.