Iraqi forces took control on Saturday of a district of the southern city of Basra which has seen intense firefights between troops and Shiite militiamen, the interior ministry said.

Iraqi troops entered the northern Hayaniyah district of the city and took control of the area in an operation lasting several hours, ministry spokesman Major General Abdel Karim Khalaf said.
""We launched an operation in the morning. There was some exchange of fire. The operation is now over in Hayaniyah without any strong resistance,"" Khalaf said.
""Our troops are deployed on the rooftops of tall buildings in the area,"" he added.
Hayaniyah, a stronghold of fighters loyal to anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, has seen intense firefights since March 25 when Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki ordered a crackdown on militiamen in the southern port city.
Since then U.S. warplanes have carried out several air strikes in the district targeting Shiite militiamen. Dozens of people have been killed.
U.S. and Iraqi forces are building a concrete wall through the Baghdad Shiite militia bastion of Sadr City in a bid to stop militiamen firing rockets at the compound that houses the Iraqi government and the U.S. embassy, the military said on Saturday.
The wall of varying height is being constructed along the main road dividing the southern side of Sadr City from the north of the sprawling district of some two million people.
The barrier of cement blocks, some up to three metres (12 feet) high, ""will enclose the neighborhood (the southern section) in order to control access in and out of the area,"" U.S. military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Steven Stover said.
At least 13 people were killed in overnight clashes between Shiite militiamen and security forces in Baghdad's Sadr City, medics and witnesses said on Saturday.
Medics in two hospitals in the Shiite district confirmed the death toll and said 80 other people were also wounded, while witnesses said exchanges of fire could be heard throughout the night.
""There were sustained clashes in the night and mortar rounds were falling across the district,"" said one local resident from Sadr City, on condition of anonymity.
The U.S. military earlier said it had killed two men in Sadr City early on Saturday.
At around 3:00 am, a U.S. aerial weapons team (AWT) saw ""two criminals with a mortar tube"", the military said in a statement.
""The AWT engaged the criminals with one Hellfire missile and killed the criminals. The mortar tube was also destroyed,"" it said.
A U.S. soldier was killed in a bombing north of Baghdad, the military said on Saturday, bringing U.S. losses already this month to 28, more than in all of January, February or March.
The soldier was on patrol in Salaheddin province on Friday when the bomb, which was hidden in a vehicle, detonated, a statement said without elaborating.
The U.S. military's overall toll since the March 2003 invasion now stands at 4,040, according to a tally based on the website www.icasualties.org.
(Source: middle east online)