Basra Confrontation May End This Week

The military operation in the southern Iraqi city of Basra, where hundreds of people died, should end soon, Iraqi government officials said Monday.

Maj. Gen. Abdul-Aziz Mohammed, commander of operations for Iraq’s Ministry of Defense, said in a news conference he was unable to offer a timetable for the remainder of the operation but said he hoped it would be brief and limited, CNN reported

Comments from Iraqi officials follow Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr’s calling on his followers to stop fighting and cooperate with security forces. Iraqi government forces began the operation last week in the southern city against several rebel Shiite militias.

An Iraqi official told CNN Monday Iran and a delegation of Iraqi Shiite lawmakers helped persuade Sadr to seek an end to the fighting. Haidar al-Abadi, a member of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s Dawa Party, said the delegation traveled to Iran on Friday to meet with Sadr and returned Sunday — the day the cleric called for his fighters to stand down.

Shops opened Monday morning and people were moving about the town, officials said. Troops and police control much of Basra, and local security forces conducted house-to-house searches to confiscate weapons and other contraband, the spokesman said told CNN.