Soldiers control Iraqi city
2006-10-21 16:33
Amara, Iraq - Troops deployed to quell trouble on the streets of Amara on Saturday as the uneasy balance of power between Iraq's security forces and Shi'ite militias threatened to break down in violence.
Government negotiators managed to broker a cease-fire in this southern city, restoring order after two days of bloodshed, but more clashes erupted further north as informal gangs of gunmen tested the government's resolve.
"The Iraqi army is on the main streets and intersections," said Shirwan al-Waili, Iraq's minister of state for national security, who rushed to Amara on Friday on the orders of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.
"The police are back in their barracks and there are no militia on the streets," he told reporters.
The medical director of Amara's health department, Zamil al-Oreibi, said that a total of 24 people had been killed in the fighting and 150 wounded, a mixture of police, militia and civilian bystanders.
Armed militiamen left the streets overnight, troops deployed in numbers and life was slowly returning to normal in this overwhelmingly Shi'ite city of around 350 000 people.
British military spokesperson Major Charlie Burbridge said 2 300 Iraqi army troops had deployed in Amara, with 700 more waiting just outside town, and confirmed that the police had returned to barracks.
"The situation is definitely calm, but it's very tense. We suspect that there is a capacity for it to brew up again without any warning," he said.
Clashes erupted on Thursday after police arrested a member of radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army and accused him of planting a bomb which killed a senior intelligence officer.
Relations had been tense between the militia and the police force, which is widely understood to be infiltrated by supporters of a rival Shi'ite movement.
Some 200 to 300 Mahdi Army fighters attacked and burned two police stations and besieged the force's local headquarters, triggering street battles between police and militants armed with assault rifles and rocket launchers.
The Iraqi army sent reinforcements to the town and British forces, which have overall security responsibility in southern Iraq, put a 600-strong battle group on standby to intervene.
On Friday, Sadr - who of late has appeared to be trying to find a political rather than a military path to power - quickly called on his supporters to stand down and sent aides to the city to negotiate a cease-fire.
"The committee of Moqtada al-Sadr had a prominent role in helping defuse the crisis. We will continue talks today and will emerge with a fair and just decision," Waili told a news conference.