BASRA, May 8: Iraqi militants and British troops fought running battles in Basra on Saturday as hundreds of Mehdi Army fighters took to the streets in a show of strength after suffering heavy losses from US forces elsewhere.

At least two Iraqis were killed and four soldiers wounded in rifle and rocket-propelled grenade attacks by fighters loyal to Shia leader Moqtada al Sadr, a British spokesman said. One man had also been arrested, he added.

"We will press on with our operation until they leave all Iraqi cities," one of Moqtada Sadr's militia commanders, Kassem Hassan, said. "We also demand the release of our prisoners."

But a British military spokesman described the fighting as the "posturing of a few lawless individuals" and said the troops were keeping a discreet distance, waiting for it to pass. They held talks with local leaders. By evening, the city was calmer.

Large bands had roamed otherwise empty streets, accompanying fighters brandishing grenade launchers and AK-47s.

Three men were killed and five soldiers hurt in Amara when British troops took over offices of Moqtada Sadr's movement there, witnesses said. Two US soldiers were killed and six Britons wounded by Sadr's men a week ago in Amara, north of Basra.

There were brief clashes around Moqtada Sadr's base in the holy city of Najaf.

SADR'S OFFICE SURROUNDED: In Baghdad, US forces kept up the pressure. Tanks backed by helicopters overhead briefly surrounded Moqtada Sadr's office in his stronghold of Sadr City and troops arrested four people working there, witnesses said.

The surge of violence to the south appeared partly a response to the crackdown on Sadr's movement by US forces closer to Baghdad over the past few days, although local people also said they were angered by mounting evidence of widespread abuse of Iraqi detainees by US, and possibly British, troops.

US President George W. Bush sought to minimize the scandal on Saturday as the "wrongdoing of a few". But despite apologies from Bush and his defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, few Iraqis are convinced.

Paul Bremer, the US administrator working to hand over power to a pro-American Iraqi government on June 30, said of the jailers: "They have done enormous damage to the way the Iraqi people look at American soldiers and the work they do."

KARBALA: Likewise, US troops clashed with the militia of firebrand Iraqi cleric Moqtada Sadr in Karbala on Saturday as tanks encircled the centre of the the shrine city, witnesses said.