Iraqi police and soldiers swept house to house through the southern city of Amara and surrounding Maysan province on Thursday in a new crackdown on Shiite fighters and illegal weapons. The search operation, backed by US forces, was launched overnight after the expiry of a four-day deadline to militiamen to surrender themselves and their weapons.
"The operation started overnight. The situation is normal and there has been no trouble," said Colonel Mehdi al-Asadi, police spokesman in Maysan. Some 60 fighters surrendered to Iraqi forces hours before the deadline, according to police. According to AFP, police also recovered hundreds of landmines and the equivalent of at least four truckloads of other weapons.
However, a top Iraqi police general who was one of the lead commanders of the operation said most Shiite militiamen had fled before the crackdown. "Most of the wanted men have run. We have arrested only one or two," he told AFP. According to him, the operation had not faced any resistance in its first few hours.
