Baghdad  - At least 50 people were arrested Wednesday as Iraqi forces continued a crackdown launched by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to maintain security in violent areas.

US and Iraqi forces raided the house of Amara's governor and arrested 30 of his guards, governmental sources in the province said Wednesday.

A source told Voices of Iraq (VOI) news agency that the governor was not arrested, as he was not home.

Meanwhile, interior ministry spokesman Abdel Kareem Khalaf told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa that Iraqi forces arrested the head of the Amara provincial council and three other members.

Earlier in June, Iraqi troops started a security offensive against militias in Amara city, 390 kilometres south of Baghdad.

Khalaf said forces were continuing to hunt down wanted suspects, and that 250 had gave up themselves to Iraqi troops.

Also in the south, police forces arrested 15 wanted people during raid-and-search operations in different parts of Basra, a security source said.

The source told VOI that forces had also defused a roadside bomb south of Basra.

Since April, the Iraqi government has conducted search operations in Basra in a bid get rid of weapons in the oil-rich city that was the battleground of fierce clashes between security forces and militants loyal to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

In the northern city of Mosul, Iraqi army forces arrested a gunman when he was attempting to plant a roadside bomb, a Nineveh police source said.

"The gunman was wounded in his right leg, before the forces arrested him," the source added.

Also in Mosul, one policeman was killed and three were wounded during clashes between a police patrol and unknown gunmen east of Mosul. (dpa)