DEBKAfile’s military sources report that heavy fighting was sparked in the southern Iraqi oil hub city Tuesday, March 25, by the major clean-up campaign embarked on by Iraqi government forces under prime minister Nouri al Maliki‘s personal command.

It was the governments first challenge to the dominant new armed force, the Hezbollah Brigades of Iraq, which our sources report raised its head in mid-January in several parts of the country, including Baghdad. More than 27 dead and 100 injured reported in the first hours of the Iraqi clampdown. The Shiite towns of Kut, Samawa and Nasiriyeh are under curfew.

DEBKAfile reports: Some of Muqtada Sadr’s Mehdi Army followers threatened civil revolt in solidarity with Hezbollah. The two radical Shiite groups are closely allied.

The new arrival has joined the armed Shiite groups and criminal gangs battling for control of Basra and its oil resources. Ignored by the international media, the Iraqi Hezbollah draws on its Lebanese command for orders, fighters, arms and cash. A tentacle of the Lebanese Shiite terror group has therefore quietly grabbed a piece of the insurgent action in Iraq under the aegis of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards al Qods Brigades.

The free-for-all in southern Iraq drove a reduced British force into a closed base in the region last December. They are not involved in the current combat, although “coalition air power” is said to be assisting the Iraqi forces.