Baghdad ? The Iraqi government said Sunday it had dismissed 1,300 soldiers and policemen for refusing to fight during an offensive last month in the southern port city of Basra.

Interior Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf said more than 900 soldiers and policemen, including 37 senior police officers, were fired in Basra, where Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki launched a security crackdown March 25.

Others were dismissed in the city of Kut, where fighting spread, Khalaf said. The offensive triggered bloody clashes across southern Iraq and in Baghdad.

Almost from the start, the Basra crackdown ran into trouble from the Mahdi Army militia, which is loyal to Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. Mahdi Army fighters ignored an order by al-Maliki to turn over their weapons and began challenging Iraqi forces in militia-controlled neighborhoods.

Police commanders in Basra said the policemen who were fired left their stations, gave up their weapons and in some cases even defected to the militia when the fighting started.

“They didn’t do their duty,” Khalaf said. “They should be ready whenever the government needs them.”

Fighting continued in the city, where police have expanded sweeps for weapons and continued to impose curfews. Residents reported seeing Mahdi Army fighters walking the streets and planting bombs.

On Sunday, fighting erupted between the militia and government security forces in the city’s Five-Mile district, where the Mahdi Army has built fortifications.

“The situation in our neighborhood is bad,” said Raad Abbas, a Basra policeman who lives in the district. “The Iraqi army has tried to get in, but the Mahdi Army fighters are banning them.”

The problems in Basra have raised questions about the preparedness of Iraq’s military and police, which the United States has spent more than $22 billion to build up. American military commanders have said that strengthening the Iraqi security forces is a critical step before significant numbers of U.S. troops can be withdrawn.

Journalist ordered freed

On Sunday in Baghdad, an Iraqi judicial panel dismissed the last remaining criminal allegation against Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein and ordered him released from custody, two years and one day after he was detained by the U.S. military.

The committee of three judges and a prosecutor of the Federal Appeals Court granted amnesty to Hussein, 36, saying there should be no further action on allegations that he may have had improper contacts with insurgents who had killed an Italian citizen, Salvatore Santoro.

In December 2004, Hussein and two other journalists were stopped by armed men and taken at gunpoint to photograph the corpse, propped up with armed insurgents standing over it.

In the unanimous decision, the panel ordered a “halt to all legal proceedings” and said Hussein, who remains in U.S. custody, should be “released immediately” unless he is wanted in connection with something else.

Last week, the panel dismissed accusations under Iraq’s anti-terrorism law. Those accusations, part of a file given to an Iraqi investigative judge by the U.S. military, alleged Hussein had cooperated with terrorists and had possessed bomb-making materials in his house.

Throughout his incarceration, Hussein has maintained he is innocent and was only doing the work of a news photographer in a war zone.