Iraqi PM: Violence Will Not Stop Us
Updated:15:07, Thursday March 27, 2008
Iraq's prime minister has vowed to keep up the fight against Shi'ite militias in Basra despite protests by hundreds of thousands of people and clashes that have claimed hundreds of lives across the country.
Protests in Sadr City
Followers of radical cleric Moqtada al Sadr took to the streets of Baghdad to voice their anger at Nouri al Maliki's attempt to seize control of Basra, Iraq's southern oil hub.
"We have made up our minds to enter this battle and we will continue until the end. No retreat," Mr al Maliki said in a speech that was broadcast on Iraqi state TV.
Government troops have faced stiff resistance in neighbourhoods controlled by al Sadr's Mehdi Army in Basra.
Residents spoke of militiamen using mortar shells, sniper fire, roadside bombs and rocket-propelled grenades to fight off security forces.
Street battles in Basra and Sadr City, an area of Baghdad controlled by al Sadr, have spread to several other neighborhoods and southern cities, leaving more than 200 dead, including civilians, Iraqi troops and militants.
Saboteurs blew up one of the two main oil pipelines coming out of Iraq, sending the price of US crude up by more than a dollar.
Suspected Shi'ite extremists have also fired rockets and mortars at the US-protected Green Zone, firing rounds that sent a huge plume of smoke above the heavily-fortified area in central Baghdad.
Nouri al Maliki
Nouri al Maliki
No casualties were immediately reported, but the military said a US soldier, two American civilians and an Iraqi soldier were wounded in a volley the day before. An American financial analyst also was killed on Sunday.
Gunmen kidnapped a well-known civilian spokesman for the Baghdad security operation and killed three of his bodyguards after torching his house in a Mehdi Army stronghold in the capital.
In other violence reported by police, a booby-trapped car exploded near the Iraqi Red Crescent Society's offices in the capital, killing two civilians and wounding five.
Gunmen also killed a US-allied Sunni fighter and wounded his wife and daughter after storming his house in the northern city of Samarra
