Maliki gives Iraq militiamen more time to disarm

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki today extended a deadline for militiamen battling government troops to disarm as fighters showed no signs of ending a standoff with Iraqi forces.

U.S. forces intervened in the battle in the southern city of Basra by dropping two bombs on militia positions overnight. A British military spokesman in the city, Maj. Tom Holloway, said that Iraq had requested airstrikes on the targets and that American jets happened to be in the vicinity and responded.

Holloway said the planes were part of 24-hour air support provided by the United States and Britain over Basra since Tuesday, when Maliki deployed troops to quell violence by Shiite Muslim militiamen.

Despite a curfew imposed across Baghdad, mortar and rocket attacks today continued to plague the Green Zone, the heavily fortified enclave in the capital that is home to the U.S. Embassy and most Iraqi government offices. One hit the office of Vice President Tariq Hashimi. He was not there, but police said three guards were killed.

Maliki’s decision to extend what had been a three-day disarmament deadline, set to expire Saturday, until April 8 was a sign of the resistance he faces from militiamen loyal to Shiite cleric Muqtada Sadr.

A spokesman for Iraq’s Interior Ministry, Maj. Gen. Abdul Kareem Khalaf, said today that “no one handed over his weapons” after Maliki issued his first order Wednesday. But Khalaf said the ministry, which oversees police, had received calls from people asking how to turn in their arms without facing arrest or other repercussions.

As a result, Khalaf said, a formal disarmament system had been established that allows fighters to register at local mosques, instead of having to go to police stations.

“During this time the armed men should hand over the heavy and the medium weapons, and they will receive a financial award,” Khalaf said in a telephone interview. He did not say what the financial award would be.

Iraq’s government has portrayed the operation so far as a success, but violence has erupted in Shiite strongholds across the country.

Maliki says the offensive is aimed at crushing rogue elements of Sadr’s Mahdi Army militia, which is locked in a power struggle in the south with the rival armed wing of the government-backed Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council.

But Sadr denies that his men are involved in violence. His followers reject assertions by Maliki and the U.S. military that the current operation is targeting only rogue militiamen and say it is aimed at Sadr in hopes of sidelining his movement.

There were scattered reports of clashes today across Iraq.

Police said fighting in the provincial capital of Nasiriya had left 15 people dead since Thursday, seven of them civilians and the rest militiamen and police.

In Basra, which remained under curfew, gunmen killed the manager of one of the city’s hospitals Thursday.

Residents reported fighters massing today on the outskirts of Saidiya, in southwestern Baghdad, in a Shiite area considered a stronghold of the Mahdi Army. Some residents reported clashes between gunmen and U.S. and Iraqi forces there, but there was no independent confirmation.

The use of American bombs to target militiamen in Basra could complicate U.S. efforts to remain on relatively good terms with Sadr, whose self-imposed cease-fire in August is credited with helping bring down violence across Iraq. The U.S. has sought to distance itself from the offensive even as it proclaims its support for Maliki’s actions.

But it confirmed that U.S. forces had been involved in some clashes in Baghdad, including three incidents this morning in Sadr City. It said U.S. soldiers killed four “criminals” in the Shiite neighborhood and a fourth in Khadimiya, another Shiite stronghold.

Salah Ubeidi, a Sadr spokesman, said U.S. helicopters had conducted airstrikes in Sadr City at 4:30 a.m. that had left four civilians dead. It was not clear if he was talking about the same incidents as the U.S. military.

The United States did not report any civilian casualties in its operations, but it is not unusual for locals to dispute military statements, and visa versa.

tina.susman@latimes.com

Times staff writers Raheem Salman and Ned Parker in Baghdad and special correspondents in Basra and Baghdad contributed to this report.