'Shiite Taliban' rises as British depart Basra

Now, all women holding public-sector jobs must be veiled, and female students at universities regularly receive written notices warning them to cover up and dress modestly, she says. Off-campus picnics and gatherings by Basra University students have been banned since March 2005, when militiamen viciously beat up a group of mixed-gender picnickers.

A student at the College of Fine Arts recounted how militiamen led by a turbaned cleric recently descended on their campus threatening to "finish off the dean with two bullets in the head" if the department was not shut down. "They called us immoral gypsies," he says.

Journalists and writers, too, say they have to think twice before publishing anything critical. "You have to write in codes and anything about the militias and the links of Islamist parties to Iran are red lines that must not be crossed," says one newspaper editor.

Three journalists were killed here in 2005: US journalist Steven Vincent, who reported from Basra for the Monitor; Iraqi reporter for the New York Times, Fakher Haidar; and the Basra correspondent for US-funded Al-Hurra Television, Abdul-Hussein Khazaal.

Many people, including the newspaper editor, accuse the Mahdi Army of being the No. 1 and most-brutal enforcer of what they deem Islamic moral practices.

"We have a stereo and speakers but we can't play music – orders of the Mahdi Army," says a waiter at a restaurant in the middle-class Jazayer neighborhood. The same rules apply at several nearby establishments.

A sectarian undercurrent

Christians here still practice their faith in their churches in Basra, and those spoken to for this article have not been subjected to direct threats, as have those in Baghdad and the northern city of Mosul. But many have opted to voluntarily leave an increasingly hostile environment.

One Christian woman in Basra says that she has witnessed an exodus of families from traditionally Christian areas like Braiha, Maaqal, and Jumhouriyah over the past two years.

Sunnis in Basra have not been as fortunate. Many have been killed or forcefully pushed out from inside the city as part of the sectarian war that has swept the whole country. Most are now concentrated in areas south of Basra.

A warning given to Sunnis in the city reads, "You have 10 days to leave our blessed land in southern Iraq and you have been forewarned."

Given the absence of an effective and trusted police force, most people now rely on their tribes and clans to protect them.

"Many of my colleagues have tacked their tribal affiliation at the end of their name. This is how low we have sunk. Educated people have to rely on their family and clan to protect them," says a doctor bitterly.

Amid this crackdown, however, there is some dissent. The London-based Mr. Mukhtar is helping a renowned local band of traditional musicians to hold concerts outside Iraq. "They practice secretly at a depot in an industrial area in Basra, and their female vocalist must travel separately and incognito when they go out," he says.

He is also supporting a Basra-based maker of ouds, a traditional Arab string instrument, who is considered to be the best in the world. "We smuggle them to Dubai and then we ship them to London," he says.

And in June, Abdul-Aziz al-Dahr, a local painter, opened the city's only art gallery. "We can't just sit in the dark; we must light a candle," he says.

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