Iraq presidency urges action on Basra infighting

BAGHDAD, May 28 (Reuters) Iraq's presidency has urged the government to send a high-level delegation with wide-ranging powers to the southern city of Basra, in the grip of a Shi'ite power struggle that threatens oil exports.

The office of President Jalal Talabani issued a statement late yesterday urging new Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, a Shi'ite Islamist, to dispatch senior officials to Basra.

He stressed they should have wide-ranging powers, saying that ''whoever goes to Basra should be authorised to dismiss and appoint'' officials and to take other necessary measures.

Security has deteriorated in Iraq's second largest city, patrolled by British forces, in the past year as rival factions of the country's Shi'ite majority vie for influence.

Accusing each other of corruption and organised crime, the opposing sides control militias, some of which are believed to have taken control of rival police units in the southern city.

The struggle intensified earlier this month when the governor of Basra province demanded the dismissal of the city's police chief, who took the job last year on a promise to end corruption.

British officials hope that Maliki's new national unity government in Baghdad will focus on calming tension in the south.

Iraqi officials and political sources last week said it risked being held to ransom by a dissident Shi'ite faction using its influence to obstruct vital oil exports.

They warned that the locally powerful Fadhila party, which controls the governor's office, was threatening to have members in the oil industry stage a go-slow to halt exports if it did not win the concessions it wanted from Baghdad.

Oil exports produce virtually all Iraq's government revenue and, with exports from northern fields halted by sabotage, the Basra oil terminal is essentially Iraq's only source of income.

Britain has about 7,000 troops in Iraq, mostly patrolling the mainly Shi'ite south.

A British helicopter crashed in the city on May 6 -- possibly shot down -- killing all five crew and sparking riots in which five Iraqis died.

REUTERS SHB VV1244