BAGHDAD, 9 May 2004 — Iraqis and British troops fought running battles in Basra yesterday as hundreds of Mehdi Army fighters took to the streets in a show of strength after suffering heavy losses from US forces in other cities.
At least three Iraqis were killed and seven soldiers wounded in rifle and rocket propelled grenade attacks by fighters loyal to Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr, a British spokesman said. One man had also been arrested, he added.
“We will press on with our operation until they leave all Iraqi cities,” one of Sadr’s militia commanders, Kassem Hassan, said. “We also demand the release of our prisoners.”
But a British military spokesman described the violence as the “posturing of a few lawless individuals” and said the troops were keeping a discreet distance, waiting for it to pass. They held talks with local leaders. By evening, the city was calmer.
Large bands had roamed otherwise empty streets, accompanying fighters brandishing grenade launchers and AK-47s.
Three gunmen were killed and five soldiers hurt in Amara when British troops took over offices of Sadr’s movement there, witnesses said. Two US soldiers were killed and six Britons wounded by Sadr’s men a week ago in Amara, north of Basra.
In Baghdad, US forces kept up the pressure. Tanks backed by helicopters overhead briefly surrounded Sadr’s office in the Shiite stronghold of Sadr City and troops arrested four people working there, witnesses said.
Troops also arrested Sadr’s main representative in the southern city of Nassiriyah, Sheikh Moayad Asadi.
US President George W. Bush sought to minimize the prisoner abuse scandal yesterday as the “wrongdoing of a few”. But despite apologies from Bush and his defense secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, few Iraqis are convinced. Evidence is mounting of widespread mistreatment.
Paul Bremer, the US administrator working to hand over power to a pro-American Iraqi government on June 30, said of the jailers: “They have done enormous damage to the way the Iraqi people look at American soldiers and the work they do.”
