Word: basra
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Maliki has also extended his deadline for Basra fighters to lay down their arms by ten days. Originally the deadline was set to expire today. But Iraqi media sources say Mahdi Army fighters are holding large swaths of the city and the battle appears far from over...
...media liaison for Iraqi forces in Basra, Colonel Abbas Ahmed, told TIME that Iraqi forces control about 75% of the city and that they have captured "many fighters from the Mahdi Army [Sadr's militia]." Coalition forces are currently providing air and logistical support to Iraqi forces in Basra, but whether or not Iraq would request more substantial ground support in the coming days "would depend on the situation," he confirmed...
...Colonel Abbas Ahmed also said that armed fighters had blown up part of an oil pipeline in Basra province on Thursday. Reports from wire sources indicate the attack has seriously disrupted the flow of oil for the first time since 2004, and could lead to a cut in a third of oil exports from Iraq's southern port...
...wire reports and eyewitnesses have reflected a far more ferocious battle. Reports indicate that more than 100 people have been killed, and hundreds more wounded since the start of the attack on Tuesday. And independent Iraqi news network al-Sharqia aired footage from Basra of masked, armed men standing atop what it said was the burned carcasses of Iraqi military humvees, with "Jaish al-imam"--Army of the Imam--graffitied on the sides...
Wire sources also reported that a suicide bomber attacked the convoy of Basra police commander Abdul Jalil Khalaf. Khalaf was unharmed but three other police were killed. Sadr supporters also clashed with Iraqi police in the southern towns of Hilla and Kut. With a curfew now in place across southern Iraq and in Baghdad, few in the Iraqi capital see a drop in the renewed violence coming anytime soon...