BAGHDAD, April 1, 2008 (AFP) - Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said on Tuesday that a crackdown on Shiite militiamen in Basra was a 'success' and that 10,000 extra troops would be recruited to keep order in the southern oil hub.

Maliki's statement came as Iraqi officials said the death toll from a military assault ordered by the prime minister a week ago on Shiite militiamen had helped propel the tally of Iraqis killed in violence across the country in March to 1,082, the highest monthly total since August.

Combined figures obtained by AFP from the interior, defence and health ministries showed that 925 civilians, 54 Iraqi soldiers and 103 policemen were killed in March -- up 50 percent on February's combined figure of 721.

Of those killed in March, around 460 were casualties of a week of bitter fighting between Iraqi security forces and the Mahdi Army militia of radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr which began in Basra but quickly spread to Baghdad and other Shiite areas of central and southern Iraq.

Maliki said he had decided to implement a seven-point programme in Basra following 'the stability and success of the security plan which achieved the aim of imposing law in the city and restoring normalcy.'

The new plan includes boosting security forces in Basra by recruiting 10,000 new troops, restoring services, imposing a strict check on vehicles without licences, building new houses for the poor and turning government-owned palaces into tourist destinations.

He had earlier Tuesday ordered his security forces to stop raiding and arresting Shiite militiamen randomly but said they should 'deal strongly with any groups carrying arms in public'.

His order came as Sadr's leaders accused the security forces of continuing to arrest Mahdi Army members in Basra and other Shiite areas of Iraq.

Harith al-Athari, chief of Sadr's office in Basra, said the cleric's militiamen were being 'exposed to random arrests and raids, houses of the members were being burned. This is in violation of what has been agreed upon.'

Sadr, meanwhile, hailed his Mahdi Army militia for standing up to Iraqi security forces during the fighting.

'I greet you and thank you for facing the difficulties, being patient, obedient, supportive of each other, defending your land, people and honour,' Sadr said in a handwritten statement released by his office in the shrine city of Najaf late Monday.

Meanwhile dozens of Iraqis from Shiite tribes on Tuesday demonstrated in the southern city of Nasiriyah in support of Maliki's crackdown on militants.

'Yes! Yes! for the law. No! No! for arms, violence and fighting,' shouted the crowd which was led by Aziz Kadhim Alwan, the governor of Dhi Qar province of which Nasiriyah is the capital.

The March death tally confirms a reversal of the trend of gradually decreasing violence since June and follows tolls of 541 in January, 568 in December, 606 in November, 887 in October, 917 in September, and 1,856 last August.

The number of people wounded in March was 1,630, almost double February's tally of 847.

Last month also saw a spate of bombings across Iraq, including one on March 18 near a revered Shiite shrine in the central city of Karbala that killed more than 50 people.

US military losses in Iraq also rose in March, with 37 killed across the country, up from 29 in February according to an AFP tally based on independent website icasualties.org.

The death toll in January had reached a 23-month low, with US commanders saying that all types of attacks were down to levels not seen before the February 2006 bombing of a Shiite shrine in the town of Samarra that unleashed a wave of sectarian violence.

The bloodshed that erupted after the shrine attack peaked in January 2007, with 1,992 deaths reported by the three ministries.