Basra, May 8 (Reuters): Iraqi militants and British troops fought running battles in Basra today as hundreds of Mehdi Army fighters took to the streets in a show of strength after suffering heavy losses from US forces elsewhere.

At least two Iraqis were killed and four soldiers wounded in rifle and rocket-propelled grenade attacks by fighters loyal to Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, a British spokesperson said.

“We will press on with our operation until they leave all Iraqi cities,” one of Sadr’s militia commanders, Kassem Hassan, said.

But a British military spokesperson described the violence as the “posturing of a few lawless individuals” and said the troops were keeping a discreet distance, waiting for it to pass. They held talks with local leaders. By evening, the city was calmer.

The surge of violence to the south appeared partly a response to the crackdown on Sadr’s movement by US forces closer to Baghdad over the past few days, although local people also said they were angered by mounting evidence of widespread abuse of Iraqi detainees by US, and possibly British, troops.

The Basra violence came a day after a preacher from Sadr’s movement told worshippers in the city he would pay a reward of $70 for the capture of a British or American soldier — and $170 for a woman soldier, he said could then be kept as a sex slave.