Maliki: Order restored in Karbala; 'Police and military special forces have spread throughout the city to purge those killers and criminals'

Left: A man grieves over a loved one killed in the Karbala violence.

Iraq's prime minister flew to the holy city of Kerbala on Wednesday and declared order had been restored after gunbattles among Shi'ite factions killed 52 people and forced hundreds of thousands of pilgrims to flee.

But the violence among Shi'ites spread overnight, with gunmen attacking the offices of a powerful Shi'ite party in at least five cities and setting many of them ablaze.

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said his troops had restored calm to the city and blamed "outlawed armed criminal gangs from the remnants of the buried Saddam regime" for the violence.

He ordered army Major-General Salih al-Maliki, the head of the Kerbala command centre, to be sacked and investigated in the wake of the chaos, a defense ministry spokesman said.

"The situation in Kerbala is under control after military reinforcements arrived and police and military special forces have spread throughout the city to purge those killers and criminals," the prime minister said in a statement.

Read the rest at Reuters

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