BASRA, April 4: British forces camped on the outskirts of Basra said on Friday they were ready to launch a long-awaited bid to take control of Iraq’s second city as they came under sporadic fire from Saddam Hussein loyalists.

“I personally think this battle group could go and do Basra now,” said Lt-Col Michael Riddell-Webster, commander of the Scottish Black Watch regiment.

But Riddell-Webster said that troops would only move into the city after they had been given the go-ahead from coalition war planners at the US Central Command.

British troops including elements of the Black Watch and the Desert Rats have been camped on the outskirts of Basra for some 10 days but have said they are in “no rush” to make a final assault.

They have made a series of incursions into the city, including a raid to destroy a giant statue of Iraqi President Saddam, and also destroyed offices and meeting places of his ruling Baath Party.

But as the soldiers tried to convince people of their good intentions by handing out thousands of leaflets on Friday, heavy artillery hit their position.

NAJAF: After battling pro-Baghdad loyalists, US troops moved into the centre of Iraq’s holy city of Najaf on Thursday, bolstered by an edict from a top local Shia Muslim leader urging people not to interfere with them.

US officers said they believed most of the Fedayeen paramilitary fighters loyal to President Saddam Hussein had dropped their equipment and fled — but that a few were still in the city putting up a fight.

The US military said Iraq’s senior Shi’ite Muslim cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who had been held under house arrest by the government, had ordered local people in a “fatwa” (edict) not to interfere with the US-led invasion troops.

“We believe this is a very significant turning point and another indicator that the Iraqi regime is approaching its end,” Brigadier General Vincent Brooks told reporters in Qatar.—Agencies