Amara - British and Iraqi troops fought intense battles against alleged Iran-backed Shi'a militants in southern Iraq on Monday, killing at least 30 people, the US military and Iraqi police said.
Fierce fighting erupted in Maysan province when joint raids by British and Iraqi forces took on militiamen in and around the provincial capital of Amara, US and British military officials said.
Troops called in air support after coming under heavy small-arms and rocket-propelled grenade fire in the two southern towns of Amara and Mujar al-Kabir, the US military said.
"Coalition forces killed at least 20 terrorists" in the Maysan raids, it said, adding that six more were wounded and one was detained.
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But Maysan provincial council member Latif al-Timimi said 16 "residents" were killed and a woman and child were among another 14 wounded.
"Most of the dead were killed in bombings as they were sleeping on the roofs of their homes. Those killed were residents and not linked to any political party," he said.
Timimi said the council decided at an emergency meeting to demand an apology from British and Iraqi forces, and to suspend work for three days.
Amara health department director Jameel Mohammed said the local hospital had received 16 bodies and admitted 37 wounded people.
British military spokesperson Major David Gell confirmed the operation but gave no details.
The US military insisted those killed in Maysan were "terrorists" responsible for smuggling explosively formed penetrators from Iran to Iraq and for bringing Iraqi fighters to Iran for training.
The military has regularly charged that explosively formed pentrators, capable of destroying even heavily-armoured vehicles, are manufactured in Iran and smuggled to armed groups in Iraq to fight US-led troops.
"Coalition forces came under heavy small-arms fire and rocket-propelled grenade attacks in both Amara and Mujar al-Kabir" before calling in air support, it said
"Intelligence reports indicate that both Amara and Mujar al-Kabir are known safe havens and smuggling routes for secret cell terrorists who facilitate Iranian lethal aid.
"Reports further indicate that Iranian surrogates, or Iraqis that are liaisons for Iranian intelligence operatives into Iraq, use both Amara and Mujar al-Kabir as safe haven locations."
An Iraqi security official in Amara said the British troops threw leaflets from helicopters declaring: "The Iraqi government will not be soft on terrorism" and "Maysan will not be a safe area for the Iranian Qods Force and its agents who want to weaken the Iraqi government."
British forces which control southern Iraqi provinces pulled out of Amara in August 2006, handing over security to Iraqi forces. Since then the town has seen frequent clashes between militamen and security forces.
A spokesperson for radical Shi'a cleric Moqtada al-Sadr confirmed the Amara raids, raising suspicion that those killed could be Shi'a militants loyal to the cleric, whose followers have often clashed with security forces.
"Last night British forces carried out a mission using helicopters and aircraft in Amara. They used bombs, missiles and small arms fire," said Auda al-Baharani.
Police said at least another 10 people, including five policemen, were killed in similar clashes in and around the southern city of Nasiriyah. Some 59 people were wounded, a police officer said.
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, meanwhile, said Tehran was considering fresh talks with the United States on security in Iraq after high-level talks on May 28 - the first in 27 years - failed to produce results. - AFP
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