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| Sweets for the troops: Basra residents welcomed Iraqi soldiers with candy. A BBC poll said two-thirds of Iraqis thought security
would improve with the British pullout. Atef Hassan/Reuters |
British hand over Basra in disarray
Nine of 18 provinces are now under Iraqi security forces. But central and southern Iraq face a vicious power struggle between Shiite parties and militias.
from the December 17, 2007 edition
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The police force and most government institutions in the province have been divided by these forces into fiefdoms. This has created fertile grounds for gangs, smugglers, and extremists often bound by financial interests to these same forces. The province also hosts a strong Iranian presence, and is caught in an intra-Shiite struggle for control of central and southern Iraq.
At least 25 people were killed Wednesday in bombings in neighboring Maysan Province, where security was handed over by the British in April. It follows bloody intra-Shiite clashes in Karbala and Diwaniyah over the summer and the assassination of two southern governors.
"There is a realignment process under way within the Shiite camp, and it's going to be bloody sometimes," says Fakhri Karim, a newspaper publisher in Baghdad and adviser to Iraq's President Jalal Talabani.
The senior Basra-based Iraqi Army official says the province's feuding parties signed a pledge with Hafidh more than a week ago promising to cooperate with him. "What's important is implementation. There was a similar pledge in the past that went no where," he says.
But Basra residents and officials say the situation now is more dangerous than it was in late August, just before the British withdrew from the city. An interior ministry official based in Basra and in charge of police inspection in southern Iraq said during a recent visit to Baghdad that General Khalaf has made little headway in cleansing the police force of militia influence.
"Out of the 17,000 policemen in Basra, about 14,000 are beholden to militias and some to the Iranian secret service," he says, requesting anonymity. The British training of an estimated 10,000 policemen in the south, he adds, has done little to alter their loyalties.
During his trip to Basra on Dec. 9, Britain's Prime Minister Gordon Brown highlighted the training of 30,000 Iraqi policemen and soldiers as one of the achievements of his country's force and a compelling reason to transfer authority to the Iraqi side.
But this year alone at least 40 women have been killed by extremists in Basra for dressing or behaving in an "un-Islamic" way. Banners and graffiti threatening women have multiplied. "If with the British in the lead we were not safe, do you expect the Iraqis to stop the killing?" ponders a female resident who requested anonymity.
Christians, too, are being targeted. Last week Osama Farid's home was raided by gunmen posing as police, a security source said. They forced him to call his sister, Maysoun, and tell her to come home. Upon her arrival, both were abducted and their bullet-riddled bodies were found on the street.
This prompted a local priest, Imad al-Banna, to announce that Christmas for Basra's dwindling Christian community will be marked by a somber mass and no festivities.
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