Yacoub and Sinan Salaheddin in Baghdad, and Nabil al-Jurani in Basra contributed reporting.
Although al-Maliki insisted that the Basra offensive is against all criminal groups, supporters of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr believe it is directed at them.
One of his first jobs was to manage an insulation project in Iraq at Khor al-Zobair, 50 miles southeast of Basra.
The mood Monday on the streets in Basra was quiet, said al-Askari, the prime minister's spokesman.
Hatim al-Bachary is an entrepreneur who is trying to revive Basra's joie de vivre.
Iraqis complain that, were it not for sanctions, foreign ships would be overflowing from cramped Umm Qasr to the port of Basra, 80 kilometres up the Shatt al-Arab waterway from the Gulf.
The current round of violence was sparked by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's decision to take on the militias in Basra.
As the spring began, al-Maliki cracked down on militants in the southern city of Basra and in Baghdad's large Sadr City slum.
However, reporters stationed in Basra -- from Abu Dhabi television and Al-Jazeera satellite network -- said they saw no signs of civilian unrest.
Shiite militiamen loyal to cleric Muqtada al-Sadr are fighting for control of the southern city of Basra, and that fighting has now spread to Baghdad.
It's in the oil-rich city of Basra, where government security forces took on the Shiite militiamen loyal to radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.
In the past few weeks Iraq's prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, has belied a reputation for weakness by sending the army to take control of the port city of Basra and the Baghdad slum known as Sadr City, both strongholds until then of the powerful militia run by Muqtada al-Sadr, a vehemently anti-American Shia cleric.
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