Rival Shiite Militias Clash in Southern Iraq

The clashes were the latest in a series of violent incidents among Shiite groups in Basra in recent months.

After British forces entered Basra in April 2003 during the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, the city held the promise of becoming the most stable in Iraq. For months, the British maintained order, while Baghdad descended into chaos.

But by last year, dozens of assassinations had taken place in Basra. The police internal affairs division was shuttered last year after accusations that it ran death squads. In recent months, rival Shiite militias, such as Sadr's Mahdi Army and Fadhila's armed wing, have fought openly in the streets of Basra.

In June, hundreds of Hassani's followers attacked the Iranian Consulate in Basra, hurling stones and setting fire to a building after another Shiite cleric criticized Hassani on Iranian television as a fake cleric and pawn of Israel, according to news reports.

With deaths mounting, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki declared a state of emergency in Basra in June and dispatched several thousand troops to crack down on the militias with an "iron fist."

On Wednesday, Maliki dispatched Brig. Gen. Abdul Khidhir al-Tahir, a member of his security committee, to Basra.

"There was an anticipation that Basra is facing problems and security violations because of its tribal and social structure, and also because of the presence of unharmonious powers in the city," Tahir told al-Iraqiya television.

In Mosul, where relations between Arabs and Kurds are tense, violence has also risen steadily. In June, authorities reported that 25 Iraqis, most of them Kurds, had been shot and killed.

On Aug. 4, insurgents attacked local police with car bombs, killing four officers and wounding eight, before police fought them off.

"Now we have total control over the security situation, and we are in complete control over all the streets and areas of Mosul," Wathiq al-Hamadani, the city's police commander, said at the time.

Yet on Tuesday, a suicide bomber rammed his explosives-laden truck into the headquarters of Iraqi President Jalal Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, killing at least nine people, including four party members, and wounding 36. And on Wednesday, gun battles raged between Iraqi police and armed men in several neighborhoods, police said.

In Baghdad, 14 people were killed and 39 were injured in roughly two hours Wednesday morning, according to Col. Basim Mohammed, an Interior Ministry official.

Three mortar rounds fell at 8:15 a.m. in central Baghdad's al-Fadhil area, seriously injuring five people and damaging shops and houses. A few minutes later, three mortar shells struck the Health Ministry building, injuring three people.

At 10 a.m., an improvised bomb exploded under a memorial to two dozen children killed last year in a car bombing, killing two people and injuring three. About 30 minutes later, a car bomb detonated in the al-Nahdha district, a mixed Sunni-Shiite neighborhood, killing 12 people, mostly day laborers waiting for work, and injuring 28.

In the evening, two more car bombs exploded in central Baghdad, killing 11 and wounding 44, police said.

Special correspondents Saad al-Izzi and K.I. Ibrahim and other Washington Post staff contributed to this report.