Maliki adds time for militia to drop arms

BASRA, Iraq, March 28 (UPI) -- Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki extended the deadline to April 8 for militias to surrender their weapons to security personnel, his office said.

The deadline had been Friday for militias fighting government troops in Basra to drop their arms in return for financial reward, the Kuwaiti news agency KUNA reported Friday

Maliki set the deadline as a response to solving "illegal arming that threatens security and the lives and properties of citizens," his office said in a statement.

The fighting has left Basra's streets nearly deserted, KUNA reported. Oil exports from the city terminal was suspended Thursday after one of three pipelines was damaged.

The Iraqi parliament said it would meet to discuss the situation in Basra. The majority in the Iraqi parliament expressed support for Maliki's security campaign to oust outlaw militias in the southern city.

Since fighting began Tuesday, some 130 people have been killed and another 350 injured. Maliki and his defense and interior ministers traveled to Basra to oversee the campaign, begun when it seemed the city was falling under the control of militias, including followers of the cleric Moqtada Sadr, chief of Mehdi Army militia.