Iraqis riot in Basra over power, gasoline crisis

Witnesses said angry Iraqis threw stones, attacked cars registered in nearby Kuwait and burned tires. Several streets and main roads leading into the city were cut as black smoke rose from the fires.

British forces fired into the air to keep back a crowd at one gasoline station, they said.

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The army spokesman said violence broke out outside at least four gasoline stations but he could not confirm that soldiers opened fire.

"We are taking measures to control the crowd," he told Reuters. "We are doing our best to bring about a normalization of the situation."

Shiite Muslim clerics were at the main flashpoint, a gasoline station at Saad Square, trying in vain to convince a crowd of hundreds to stop hurling stones at the troops, witnesses said.

The spokesman said British officers were in contact with local authorities to contain the situation.

Hundreds of people also marched to the headquarters of the British forces -- once a palace for the deposed Saddam Hussein -- where they demanded the restoration of power and petrol supplies, witnesses said.

Some stones were thrown at the guards.

About 10,000 British soldiers have been policing large swathes of southern Iraq since the US-British invasion in March forced Saddam into hiding and destroyed his government.

Earlier a British military spokesman said there had been trouble at a petrol station in the city and that some Iraqis had stoned and burned a Kuwaiti tanker.

He said British forces rescued the occupants of the vehicle. Another Kuwaiti car was stoned and burned, witnesses said.

Witnesses said the crowd was enraged by the lack of petrol at the station and power in the city where summer temperature was over 122 degrees Fahrenheit.

They said the soldiers opened fire in the air after the angry crowd threw stones at them and at the Kuwaiti tanker at the fuel station in Saad Square. The crowd then set the tanker on fire, they said.

Meanwhile, US President George Bush said Friday US forces were slowly but surely wiping out those responsible for attacks on American troops in Iraq, but he gave no timetable for an end to occupation.

In Baghdad, a senior Iraqi politician said Iraqi and US investigators had leads that could soon uncover who mounted a truck bomb attack on the Jordanian embassy that killed 17 people.

Iyad Allawi, head of the security committee of Iraq's US- appointed Governing Council, told Reuters those responsible for Thursday's blast could be identified within days.

Bush, marking 100 days since he announced major combat in Iraq over, offered an upbeat assessment of the situation despite daily attacks on US troops in which 55 have been killed since May 1.

He was speaking at his Texas ranch after talks there with Vice-President Dick Cheney, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, Richard Myers.