March 31, 2008

Basra fighting rages on, "surge" failing

Fierce fighting continues between Iraqi government troops and Shiite Muslim militants as death toll nears 300.

Iraq authorities were also forced to extend a strict curfew on Baghdad indefinitely Sunday as the fighting showed no end in sight.

Clashes sparked by a government-led push against "outlaw" militias in the southern city of Basra had left more than 280 people dead by Saturday, according to Iraqi authorities. The fighting has stretched across southern Iraq's Shiite heartland up to Baghdad, where a ban on pedestrian and vehicle traffic was extended just hours before it was due to expire Sunday morning.

U.S. warplanes and British artillery struck targets in Basra on Saturday, a British spokesman said, and the U.S. military reported two U.S. soldiers were killed in a roadside bombing in Baghdad. Another Basra airstrike killed 16 "criminal fighters," and a joint U.S.-Iraqi patrol killed 13 more fighters in southeastern Baghdad's Suwayrah district, U.S. commanders reported.