Gains in Iraq undercut by recent violence

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MUQDADIYAH, Iraq — A battle for control of oil-rich Basra, a second rocket attack on the Green Zone this week and the reappearance of armed followers of anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr yesterday threatened recent security gains from the U.S. troop surge.

Gunfire and the sound of explosions could be heard throughout Basra, according to local reports saying up to 25 people had been killed in a battle between the Iraqi army and fighters from Sheik al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia.

"This operation will not come to an end in Basra without the law prevailing," Ali al-Dabbagh, a spokesman for the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, said from the port city.

Mr. al-Maliki was in Basra directing military operations against the Mahdi militia, which has extended its control since the withdrawal of British troops from the city in December.

The British remained in their base on the outskirts of the city and did not intervene.

As Basra shook with the sounds of explosions, rockets and mortars fired from Sadr City in East Baghdad crashed into the U.S. protected Green Zone for the second time in a week.

There were no reports of casualties. But the U.S. Embassy confirmed the death of an American in an Easter Day rocket attack on the Green Zone, the Associated Press reported.

Paul Converse, 56, was a financial analyst for the U.S. government, his parents told the Gazette-Times newspaper in their hometown of Corvallis, Ore.

Mahdi Army gunmen were reported to have clashed with coalition forces in the Sadr City area, but the reports could not be confirmed.

In other developments, curfews were enforced in the mainly Shi'ite cities of Diwaniyah, Kut, Hilla, Nasiriyah and elsewhere to head off violence by militia supporters, amid a call from Sheik al-Sadr for a nationwide general strike.