FIERCE CLASHES IN BASRA !

The Mehdi Army last month extended a six-month ceasefire. Heavy fighting has erupted in Iraq's southern city of Basra between Iraqi security forces and members of the Mehdi Army, a Shia militia.
Eyewitnesses speak of plumes of smoke, explosions, tanks and artillery.
Authorities in Basra have already imposed an indefinite night-time curfew because of the security situation.
Iraqi PM Nouri Maliki is in the city overseeing the operation, said the UK military, which returned control of Basra to the Iraqis in December.
A British military spokesman said the operation was being directed by Iraqi forces and that UK troops, now based at Basra airport, were not involved.
The Iraqi army conducted raids across Basra on Tuesday, while routes into the city have been sealed off, according to reports.

Officials at the city's hospitals said a number of wounded people had been brought in.
On Monday, the Iraqi prime minister said the central government had decided to "re-impose security, stability and law" in the oil-rich city.
But the powerful Mehdi Army - which is loyal to radical Shia cleric Moqtada Sadr - had warned it would retaliate if its members were targeted in any security clampdown.

Last month the cleric renewed a ceasefire his group had been observing since last August.
But the militia is reportedly in the middle of a turf war with rival Shia militias.
Despite its ceasefire, there have been a number of assassinations and kidnappings in its Basra stronghold.
Criminal gangs have been vying for control of lucrative oil-smuggling routes, say correspondents.
The oil fields in the Basra area are the source of most of Iraq's revenues.
The BBC's Adam Brookes says the operation appears to be aimed at loosening the grip of militias and criminal gangs on Iraq's most economically important city.

BBC NEWS REPORT.