By IRNA
Baghdad : Tension escalated between government and followers of Iraqi anti-occupation campaigner Moqtada Sadr with continued arrest of al-Mahdi members.
Sadr demanded the Iraqi government respect the terms of a deal reached by the two parties which led to his order calling on al-Mahdi militia to abandon the streets of Sadr City and Basra.
US and the UK air raids on the the two cities for four consecutive days led to deaths of at least 300 civilians and maiming of 500 last week.
The air raids aimed to clear the way for government tanks to enter the cities.
More than 1,000 Iraqi soldiers and policemen either refused to fight or simply abandoned their posts during the assault against Shia militias in Basra last week, a senior Iraqi government official said.
The crisis created by the desertions and other problems with the Basra operation was serious enough for Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to reach the point that the people living in the area are suffering from livelihood shortages.
A British military official said that Maliki had brought 6,600 reinforcements to Basra to join the 30,000 security personnel already stationed there, and a senior American military official said that he understood that between 1,000 to 1,500 Iraqi forces had deserted or underperformed. That would represent a little over four percent of the total.
Even as officials described problems with the planning and performance of the Iraqi forces during the Basra operation, signs emerged that tensions with al-Sadr could flare up again.
Sadr has called for a million Iraqis to march to the Shia holy city of Najaf next week to protest what he called the American occupation.
At least 30 MPs at Iraqi parliament are loyal to al-Sadr who gave a warning accusing the government of violating the terms of an agreement already reached by the two parties.