109 dead bodies and 634 wounded were brought to just two hospitals

Basra returning to normal after Sadr truce 31 Mar 2008 11:04:22 GMT
Source: Reuters
* Basra residents bury their dead

* Basra quiet after Sadr ordered followers off streets

* Clashes in Baghdad, Green Zone hit by mortars

(Updates throughout with analyst, colour, death toll)

By Aref Mohammed

BASRA, Iraq, March 31 (Reuters) - Residents buried their dead and swept rubble from the streets after quiet returned to the southern Iraqi city of Basra on Monday, but clashes continued in Baghdad despite a truce to end a week of violence.

Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr called his fighters off the streets on Sunday, nearly a week after a crackdown on them sparked fighting that spread through the south and the capital.

Life slowly returned to normal in Basra where Sadr's masked Mehdi Army militia fighters were no longer to be seen openly brandishing weapons in the street as they had for days.

"We have control of the towns around Basra and also inside the city. There are no clashes anywhere in Basra. Now we are dismantling roadside bombs," said Major-General Mohammed Jawan Huweidi, commander of the Iraqi Army's 14th division.

Shops were beginning to reopen, some for the first time in a week. Authorities said schools would reopen on Tuesday. Residents hosed down the hulks of burnt-out cars. Others drove with coffins in their trunks carrying the unburied dead.

Many expressed anger at the government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki for unleashing the violence.

"Today the situation is good. The battle is over. But Maliki did not achieve what he wanted. He ruined Basra," said grocer Numan Taha, 40, reopening his shop in the Hayaniya neighbourhood, a Sadr stronghold.

In Baghdad, where a three-day curfew was mostly lifted, the truce seemed tenuous at best. Explosions struck the "Green Zone" government and diplomatic compound in what police said was a volley of six mortar bombs. Sirens wailed and a recorded voice ordered people to take cover.

U.S. military spokesman Major Mark Cheadle said there were clashes in several Baghdad neighbourhoods early on Monday.

U.S. forces called in at least three helicopter strikes in Baghdad late on Sunday after Sadr's ceasefire, including one in which they said they killed 25 fighters who attacked a convoy struck by a roadside bomb. U.S. helicopter strikes, once rare in the capital, became common over the past week.

"The attacks haven't stopped. There's still a lot of enemy out there, we're not going to quit protecting the populace," Cheadle said. But he said fighting in the capital had eased over the past two days and U.S. forces expected it to ease further.

"They were looking for an excuse to stop fighting," he said. "They don't like facing us because they get killed."

Sadr City, a sprawling slum of about 2 million people that is Sadr's main stronghold and which has witnessed some of the worst fighting in the past week, remained sealed off by U.S. and Iraqi troops, but appeared quiet, said resident Mohammed Hashin.

"The last days were a tragedy: no water no food, garbage heaped in the narrow streets."

Reuters correspondents said southern towns that have seen fighting such as Kut, Hilla and Nassiriya appeared quieter.

A Reuters photographer in Mahumidya, south of Baghdad, said dead bodies were being kept on blocks of ice in a Shi'ite mosque because it was not yet safe enough to bury them.

NEGOTIATIONS

The week saw government troops have little military success driving fighters from the streets in their biggest test yet.

Sadr announced the surprise ceasefire after talks behind the scenes with parties in Maliki's government. As part of the deal, Sadr's aides say, authorities are to end roundups of his followers and implement an amnesty to free prisoners.

The government still says it wants militants to hand over heavy and medium weapons. But Sadr's aides say his followers have no heavy weapons and will keep their light arms to defend themselves against the U.S. "occupation".

"I dont think any party can claim victory," said Mustafa Alani, analyst at the Dubai-based Gulf Research Centre. "Sadr asked his followers to move away from the streets but he is not asking them to disarm. It came out of an agreement, not defeat."

Maliki launched the crackdown last Tuesday in Basra, which controls Iraq's only sea port and 80 percent of its oil revenues. The government has long worried about rival militia fighting for control of Basra and portrayed the crackdown as an attempt to assert state authority in a lawless city.

But the militia are also tied to political parties, and Sadr's followers saw the crackdown as an attempt to subdue them ahead of provincial elections due by October.

Alani said there could be more clashes ahead: "It will be a short honeymoon especially with election time coming up.... Things will escalate before they decline."

The Interior Ministry said 210 people had been killed and 600 wounded in Basra during the week. In Sadr City, 109 dead bodies and 634 wounded were brought to just two hospitals, said Ali Bustan, head of the health directorate for eastern Baghdad.

Scores more were killed in other parts of the capital and in other southern towns.

Jabbar Sabhan, a civil servant in Basra, said he was glad the violence had died down but was doubtful the calm would hold.

"I didn't go to work today. It is true that there are no clashes, gunmen or explosions, but the situation is still dangerous. I don't trust the words of politicians." (Additional reporting by Peter Graff, Aseel Kami, Aws Qusay and Randy Fabi in Baghdad; Writing by Peter Graff; Editing by Samia Nakhoul)