Iraqi government trying to regain control over Basra
At least 25 people were killed in Iraq on Tuesday in ongoing heavy fighting between the Iraqi forces and militants in the southern city of Basra.
Sources said that the al-Sadr and Mawani hospitals admitted more than 70 of the injured, most of them Iraqi troops and police officers but also civilians and members of Mahdi militia.
Four militants from the Mahdi Army, a militia loyal to radical Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, were also among the dead.
Intense fighting was reported in Basra, as the Mahdi Army, attacked a number of security checkpoints.
The Voice of Iraq news agency said al-Sadr's office had denied there had been any clashes between the Mahdi Army and Iraqi forces.
According to Voice of Iraq sources, al-Sadr had ordered his militia to hand over Koran copies and olive leaves to the Iraqi soldiers deployed across the Iraqi capital, stressing that there were no clashes between the al-Sadr militia and the Iraqi troops in Al-Sadr city in Baghdad.
The Al-Jazeera news channel quoted an al-Sadr spokesman saying that al-Sadr had threatened a civil disobedience if Iraqi forces did not stop its security operation in the city of Basra.
Meanwhile, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki launched a security plan in Basra to maintain security and fight militia and gangs in the city.
Some 50,000 Iraqi troops and police reinforcements are in Basra, supervised by al-Maliki, who is also the general commander of the army, Abdul-Karim Khalaf.
Security forces imposed a blanket curfew in the city from the early hours of Monday, while schools and universities did not open Tuesday and will stay closed for a further three days.
The city's borders have also been closed for the coming three days and citizens ordered to hand all weapons to security forces.
Al-Maliki arrived in Basra Monday to inspect the security situation in Iraq's second largest city where Shia parties, their militias and criminal gangs are all locked in a struggle for power.
Witnesses say several US military aircraft have landed at Basra airport.
The US military reported that five extremists were killed overnight by coalition troops near Basra as they prepared a bomb.
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