(VOI) -- Policemen arrested five wanted men on Monday during crackdown operations launched in separate areas in Basra, an official police source said. "The forces waged security raids in different areas, where they arrested five wanted men," the source told Aswat al-Iraq -- Voices of Iraq -- (VOI).Baghdad and a number of southern provinces have witnessed armed confrontations between security forces and Shiite Cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi army fighters on March 25, hours after Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki announced the launch of Operation Saulet al-Foursan (Knights' Assault), which aims at eliminating armed groups in Basra.
Basra, 590 km (340 miles) south of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, has an estimated metropolitan population of 2,300,000 in 2008.