IRAQI forces backed by British troops and artillery seized the main stronghold of the radical Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr in the southern port city of Basra yesterday.

The operation, which also involved RAF and American aircraft, forced the cleric’s Mahdi army militants to cede control of a district where they had fought off an Iraqi onslaught last month.

A senior Mahdi source in Basra said British soldiers - believed to be SAS troops directing attacks - had accompanied the Iraqis as they moved into the district of Hayaniya.

British officials said only that “liaison teams” were advising Iraqi commanders on the ground, after US criticism during Gordon Brown’s visit to Washington of earlier failures to clear militants from the city.

Yesterday’s assault was launched five days after a kidnapped British journalist, Richard Butler, was rescued in Basra, apparently from the home of a Mahdi army officer. Butler, who was working for the American network CBS, had been held for more than two months but said he had not been mistreated.

The oil city awoke yesterday to heavy artillery and air strikes directed at Mahdi rocket launchers. The Iraqis then moved in with relative ease.

Witnesses said huge quantities of weapons, including hundreds of rockets and mortars, had been found abandoned. Some had been left in the street by fleeing militiamen.

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