Iraqi army readies offensive in south (Roundup)

Jun 15, 2008, 13:16 GMT

Baghdad - Iraqi government troops took up positions on Sunday in the southern Maysan province in a fresh operation against Shiite militias while cities in northern Iraq saw a fresh outbreak of violence.

Maysan will be a demilitarized zone effective from Sunday and militiamen have four days to surrender their arms, according to a statement issued on Saturday by the commander of the Iraqi armed forces.

Army tanks have been patrolling the streets of the provincial capital Amarah, which is dominated politically by supporters of the radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

Iraqi troops have assembled at an airport to the north-east of Amarah and at a local stadium, security officers told the media.

The crackdown is the fourth offensive this year in which al-Maliki - the commander of the armed forces - has sent troops into a city to rid it of Shiite or Sunni militias.

Army helicopters dropped leaflets on the city, urging people to stay home and not interfere with the assault while the government offered monetary rewards for information on militiamen's hideouts and weapons caches.

Amarah with a population of about 350,000 people is smaller than Basra, which was the scene of another crackdown against al-Sadr's loyalists in March.

However, the city is strategically important as it is suspected by the US military to be a main conduit for weapons smuggling from Iran along the border across marshland.

In the north, three attacks caused five fatalities, including that of an academic. Four people were also wounded.

In Mosul, 400 kilometres north of Baghdad, a science professor, Walid al-Mulla, died in a hail of bullets fired by gunmen while he was on his way to work, police said.

Two of his sons were wounded, one of them seriously.

Iraqi academics along with other professionals have been targeted in the campaign of violence that engulfed the country since the US- led invasion in 2003.

In a separate attack in the city, two policemen were shot dead by gunmen in the Sirj market, local police said.

Iraqi troops have been launching a crackdown in Mosul, the capital of Nineveh, against Sunni insurgents and loyalists of the al-Qaeda in Iraq militant group.

In the northern city of Kirkuk, a bomb struck an army patrol, killing a soldier and a civilian and wounding two soldiers, Brigadier-General Ghazi Shukr from the local police told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

Earlier, a bomb went off as students were entering the technical university in the industrial area in Baghdad to sit for their final exams, eyewitnesses told dpa.

Several people were wounded in the area which has many computer shops, bookshops and restaurants.