BRITISH troops could be sent to clean out extremist militias in Basra who orchestrated the rioting at the site of the Lynx helicopter crash if the Iraqi army fails to do the job, the most senior British officer in the country said yesterday.

Lieutenant-General Sir Rob Fry, deputy commander of all the multinational forces in Iraq, told The Times that the vital test for the country’s new Government is to take on and defeat the gunmen trying to impose mob rule in big cities.

An armed splinter group from the notorious al-Mahdi Army, backed by fundamentalists across the border in Iran, is blamed for opening fire on the British force sent to try to rescue the helicopter crew.

General Fry said that if Nouri al-Maliki, Iraq’s recently elected Prime Minister, fails to curb the power of the militias, who take their orders from leading clerics and politicians, then military action may have to be used.

The main target to be disarmed is al-Mahdi Army, led by the volatile cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who was involved yesterday in haggling for his party to have more seats in the Cabinet. “He can’t be taken as a serious politician and have this tin-pot army around him,” General Fry said.

Intelligence reports suggest that there is a danger that many gunmen in Basra are now beyond Mr al-Sadr’s control and that terror groups in Iran are funding and arming local militia. Coalition commanders are trying to discover who in Iran is masterminding the increasing support for the splinter groups and stirring up the recent violence.

General Fry said: “Iran probably wants to inconvenience the coalition, to detain us militarily, cause us a certain amount of military attrition, and blunt any appetite that the West might have for further military adventures in this area. But what it doesn’t want is a long-term American presence here, or a state in turmoil on its borders.”

He said that the events of the weekend will not disrupt plans for withdrawal of British troops from southern Iraq.

Sectarian violence has spread since the destruction of one of Shia Islam’s holiest mosques in Samarra in February by al-Qaeda suicide bombers.

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