ROUGH CUT (NO REPORTER NARRATION)

Training centers were opened across Iraq's Shi'ite southern city of Basra to train thousands of people who have volunteered to join the fight against radical Sunni militants who are threatening to advance into Baghdad.

According to official records, over two million Iraqis have volunteered over the past week across the country in a response to a call by the country's most influential Shi'ite cleric to take up arms against a full-blown Sunni militant insurgency to topple Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, a conflict that threatens civil war and a possible break-up of the country.

In Basra, the Shi'ite group of Badr Organisation of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (ISCI) offered a one week training course to teach volunteers how to disassemble and assemble weapons, use weapons and basic information regarding infantry drills.

In a rare intervention at Friday prayers in the holy city of Kerbala, a message from Grand Ayatollah A