Gunmen loyal to two rival Iraqi Shiite parties clashed in the southern city of Basra yesterday, prompting security forces to order a clampdown.
Police patrols warned residents to stay inside and said an indefinite curfew had been imposed.
Gunmen attacked the headquarters of Fadhila, a small but powerful party that controls the provincial governorate and withdrew from the ruling Shiite alliance last week, witnesses said.
The battle will be seen as a worrying sign of intra-Shiite tension.
The fighting also erupted just two days after British forces pulled out of their base in the center of Basra, Iraq's second city, and handed it over to the Iraqi 10th division in what a British general called an important step towards Iraqis taking control of their own security.
Hospital sources said seven people had been wounded in the clashes, which residents said lasted nearly an hour. Shortly after midday the intense gunfire dwindled to sporadic shooting.
Police Brigadier Ali al-Ibrahim said police and soldiers were being deployed in the area of the clashes.
British military spokesman Major David Gell said: "We are aware something is happening but we don't have any more information," adding that multinational forces were standing by.
Basra, whose oil accounts for virtually all of Iraq's state revenues with northern export pipelines crippled by rebel bombings, is a major prize for all parties.
Details of the fighting were sketchy but Ali al-Hamadi, the head of Basra's emergency security committee, blamed it on a "misunderstanding" between Fadhila and the Mehdi Army militia of radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.
A Shiite official in Baghdad said the two groups were fighting over one of the buildings vacated by the British troops on Tuesday, although this could not be immediately confirmed.
Officials of Sadr's movement and the Fadhila party sought to play down the violence.
"Whatever is happening, there is no problem between us and the Sadrists. There is no way we would clash with them," said Nadim al-Jabiri, a senior official of Fadhila.
Salaam al-Maliki, a Sadrist and former transport minister, blamed the fighting on a personal dispute between the head of the electricity directorate and an engineer.
"The picture is not clear. It seems the engineer has brought members of his tribe. It is a tribal thing, not political. We have asked the governor to send the police to stop the fighting," he said.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair said last month that Britain would begin withdrawing a quarter of its 7,000 troops stationed mainly in and around Basra, although some analysts and residents questioned whether the move was premature. While Basra has not experienced the levels of violence seen in the capital Baghdad, criminal gangs have taken root amid fighting between rival Shiite militias and political parties .
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