By DPA
Baghdad : At least 20 members of the Jund al-Samaa militant group were killed and 35 detained in armed clashes with Iraqi security forces in the southern city of Basra, media reports said Saturday.
Iraqi forces Friday killed and detained 55 militants during clashes with the Jund al-Samaa, a religious armed group that aims at taking power over the city of Najaf, 180 km south of Baghdad, the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI) said.
Security forces destroyed the group’s meeting point in al-Zahraa district in central Basra.
Intense clashes with the security forces started Friday during the religious celebrations of Ashura festival, in which Shia Muslims walk in a pilgrimage to a shrine held to be the tomb of Imam Hussein, the grandson of the prophet Mohammed, who was killed in the Battle of Karbala in 680 AD.