(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-03-30 18:11

"We can't fight our brothers in the Mahdi Army, so we came here to submit our weapons," one policeman said on condition of anonymity for security reasons.

He said about 40 policemen had defected to the Mahdi Army. The figure could not be confirmed, but AP Television News footage showed about a dozen uniformed police, their faces covered with masks to shield their identity, being met by Sheik Salman al-Feraiji, al-Sadr's chief representative in Sadr City.

Al-Feraiji greeted each policeman and gave them a copy of the Quran and an olive branch as they handed over their guns and ammunition.

Also Saturday, the US military said 16 enemy fighters had been killed in airstrikes supporting Iraqi troops during clashes with Shiite militiamen in Basra. An AC-130 gunship strafed heavily armed militants attacking Iraqi forces from three rooftops, military spokesman Maj. Brad Leighton said.

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Iraqi police earlier claimed eight civilians, including two women and a child, had been killed when a US warplane destroyed a house early Saturday. They spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to release the information.

But Leighton said US special operations forces helped identify the militants before the airstrike.

British military spokesman Maj. Tom Holloway also said US jets later dropped two precision-guided bombs on a suspected militia stronghold north of the city, but no casualties were reported.

Iraq's Health Ministry, which is close to the Sadrist movement, on Saturday reported at least 75 civilians have been killed and at least 500 others injured in a week of clashes and airstrikes in Sadr City and other eastern Baghdad neighborhoods.

The US military sharply disputes the claims, having said that most of those killed were militia members.

Meanwhile, Iraqi officials said they had received a phone call from Tahseen Sheikhly, the high-profile civilian spokesman for the Baghdad security operation, who was seized by gunmen two days earlier from at his home in a Shiite area of the capital.

An Iraqi-owned satellite television station, Sharqiya, broadcast what it said was a tape of the conversation, in which a man identifying himself as Sheikhly said he was being held "with a group of officers" at an unknown location.

"Our release depends on the withdrawal of al-Maliki from Basra and the easing of the military operations against the Sadrists in all provinces," he said. "We appeal to the prime minister and the Iraqi government to work with the Sadrist movement, which represents the popular base of society."

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