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APBAGHDAD - Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's office says the Iraqi government has given residents of Basra until April 8 to turn over "heavy and medium-size weapons" in return for a reward.
Government adviser Sadiq al-Rikabi says the deadline is separate from a three-day ultimatum for gunmen in the southern town to surrender their arms and renounce violence or face harsher measures. That expires later Friday.
The move instead appears to be aimed at noncombatants who may have weapons like machine guns and grenade launchers, either for smuggling purposes or to sell to militants or criminal gangs.
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080328/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_weapons
Iraqi police in Basra shed their uniforms, kept their rifles and switched sidesAbu Iman barely flinched when the Iraqi Government ordered his unit of special police to move against al-Mahdi Army fighters in Basra.
His response, while swift, was not what British and US military trainers who have spent the past five years schooling the Iraqi security forces would have hoped for. He and 15 of his comrades took off their uniforms, kept their government-issued rifles and went over to the other side without a second thought.
Such turncoats are the thread that could unravel the British Army’s policy in southern Iraq. The military hoped that local forces would be able to combat extremists and allow the Army to withdraw gradually from the battle-scarred and untamed oil city that has fallen under the sway of Islamic fundamentalists, oil smugglers and petty tribal warlords. But if the British taught the police to shoot straight, they failed to instil a sense of unwavering loyalty to the State.
“We know the outcome of the fighting in advance because we already defeated the British in the streets of Basra and forced them to withdraw to their base,” Abu Iman told The Times.
“If we go back a bit, everyone remembers the fight with the US in Najaf and the damage and defeat we inflicted on them. Do you think the Iraqi Army is better than those armies? We are right and the Government is wrong.
Maliki is driving his Government into the ground.”
more:http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/iraq/article3635838.ece