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Iraq clashes spread as death toll soars

Sadr orders militia to reject PM's call to surrender arms

AFP, Baghdad/ Najaf
Fierce clashes between Shia gunmen and troops spread to new Shia areas of Iraq yesterday as the overall death toll from five days of bloodshed surged to nearly 230.
Iraq’s radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr on Saturday ordered his followers to reject Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's call to surrender their arms as clashes with troops raged for a fifth straight day.
Sadr has told us not to surrender our arms except to a state that can throw out the (US) occupation.” Haider al Jabari of the Sadr movement's political bureau told AFP in the holy city of Najaf, home to the cleric's main office.
On Saturday violence was reported from the central Shia city of Karbala in which 12 "criminals"
were killed, local police chief Raed Jawdat Shakir said.
He did not provide further details, but said 25 people were also arrested in the operation (hat began overnight
The death toll from similar clashes between Shia gunmen and Iraqi and US troops in Baghdad's sprawling Sadr City stronghold rose to at least 75, with another 498 people wounded in the past four days.
"Seventy-five people have been killed and 498 wounded in clashes in Sadr City in the last four days," Qassim Mohammed, a spokesman for Baghdad health directorate, told reporters in Sadr City.
He accused the US forces of "creating obstacles" in transporting victims of the violence outside the area.
''They arc preventing even international aid workers to help the wounded," he said during a visit to Sadr City's Imam Ali hospital.
Sadr City, bastion of the feared Mahdi Army militia of anti American cleric Moqtada al Sadi, has been engulfed in fierce clashes between security forces and the militiamen
Clashes erupted there after Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki launched a crackdown on Shia fighters in the southern city of Basra on Tuesday.
Ahmed, a resident of the slum neighbourhood of some two mil lion people, said the situation was deteriorating.
"The hospitals are overflowing with wounded. They can't take any more. Even the medical stores are
closed," he said.
' There is no electricity, no water or fuel We are afraid of gunbattles. The main markets are also closed," he added.
Meanwhile, clashes on the ground in Basra continued.
"Last night we continued our operations in all areas of Basra," an Iraqi army officer told AFP on Saturday on condition of anonym ity, adding th.it (he crackdown will continue till "we have arrested all criminals."
Maliki has vowed to pursue the crackdown against Shia gunmen in Basra even as his forces face stiff resistance.
On Friday he gave residents until April 8 to surrender heavy and medium weapons in return for money in a bid to cut the supply of arms to militants.