Pat Dollard | Young Americans

(AFP) - Iraqi security forces overran a mosque in southern Iraq where fighters of a shadowy Shiite messianic sect were holed up Saturday, ending two days of clashes in two cities that killed more than 70 people, police said.

The fighting came as millions of Shiites across Iraq marked Saturday’s climax of 10-day Ashura rituals, which commemorate the killing of Imam Hussein by armies of the Sunni caliph Yazid in 680.

The mosque was the last stronghold of the cultists. Wearing yellow headbands sporting the Star of David, they attacked police simultaneously early Friday afternoon in the southern port city of Basra and in Nasiriyah, about 350 kilometres (220 miles) south of Baghdad.

Fighting raged through the afternoon in both cities. It died down in Basra during the night but continuing sporadically in Nasiriyah.

A police official in Nasiriyah said Iraq’s security forces raided hideouts of the doomsday cultists at daybreak on Saturday, flushing them out of the mosque and houses they had occupied in Al-Salhiyah suburb.

“Some of the insurgents were killed and arrested while others fled during the raid,” the police official told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The security forces had found the mosque to be booby-trapped and disposal experts later triggered a blast which destroyed the building, he said. Amid the rubble was found yellow headbands and anti-government literature.

Two policemen were killed by teenage snipers during Saturday’s clashes in Nasiriyah. The snipers, two 14-year-old boys, were quickly arrested, police said.

Police officials said at least 35 cultists were killed in Basra and 18 in Nasiriyah. A total of 14 police, two Iraqi soldiers and two civilians were also killed.

At least 25 cultists were arrested in Naisiriyah and 75 in Basra.

Followers of the cult, led by Ahmed al-Hassani al-Yamani, seek to hasten the return of Imam Mahdi, an eighth century imam who vanished as a boy and whom Shiites believe will return to bring justice to the world.

Yamani has his own website on which he claims to be an ambassador for the Mahdi, whom he says is imminently to re-appear.

The fighting comes as around two million Shiites have descended on the holy city of Karbala in central Iraq for Saturday’s climax of the Ashura rituals, which commemorate the killing of Imam Hussein by armies of the Sunni caliph Yazid in 680.

During Ashura last January, another militant sect dubbing itself the Jund al-Samaa, or “Soldiers of Heaven,” clashed with US and Iraqi forces outside Karbala and another holy Shiite city, Najaf.

Last year’s fighting left 263 sect followers dead, including their leader Dhia Abdul Zahra Kadhim al-Krimawi, also known as Abu Kamar, who believed he was descended from the Prophet Mohammed.

Proceedings in Karbala were continuing peacefully, governor of the province Aqil al-Khazali told a press conference on Saturday.

“Two million people have come to Karbala for Ashura,” he said.

“There have been no security violations so far and the ceremonies have gone ahead without incident.”

“We are preparing buses to take people home,” he added.

Ashura ceremonies have been targeted by Sunni insurgents in the past. On Thursday a suicide bomber blew himself up during a procession outside a mosque in Baquba, 60 kilometres (35 miles) north of Baghdad, killing eight people.

British forces handed over control of the oil-rich province of Basra to Iraqi forces in mid-December, amid warnings that it could descend into violent turf wars between Shiite militias.

Britain expects to sharply reduce its nearly 5,000-strong troop presence in the province, but says around half that number will stay at their base at Basra airport to support the Iraqi security forces and for training purposes.