For my take on Petraeus' testimony to the House:
tribes.tribe.net/political...0e4574f991
Bottom line: Little light was cast.
In the Senate, Petraeus came under some heavier guns, and some of his answers seemed to fall short, particularly on the crucial question of Basra. The British have virtually abandoned the southern five provinces of Iraq to Shiite militias, and are presently confined to a single base, which comes under nightly mortar and rocket fire. According to press reports, the transition has been a violent one.
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...01.html
Petraeus took note of the news reports, but reassured the senators that things were now going well:
"Occasionally, folks have said that this is a little like the Italian city-states in Machiavelli's day or something like that. But there's an awful lot of toing and froing, some violence, certainly. And, of course, in some other provinces there has been terrible incidents, where governors were assassinated by elements linked with the militia. But right now, there's actually quite a very low level of attacks and so forth, and has been that way I think for about a month now. . .
"There was the installation of a senior Iraqi general down there -- four-star general who had been working directly for the minister of defense. Quite a forceful individual, I knew from the past, by the way. New police chief, some months back. "
media.washingtonpost.com/wp-sr...7.html
But only a few days before, there was an assassination attempt on the general's intelligence chief in Basra. Two bodyguards died.
patdollard.com/2007/09/06...on-attempt/
In August, two governors of adjoining provinces were assassinated, and a third barely escaped.
www.reuters.com/article/wo...91820070827
In July, a senior Hezbollah militant, responsible for training Shiite fighters under the auspices of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, was captured in Basra:
afp.google.com/article/AL...reZk6FOu7qA
According to Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ), the relative peace which Basra has currently enjoyed is due to tribute paid to Shiite militias in order to keep the port open. (Unconfirmed reports also attribute the defection of Sunni chiefs in Al Anbar province to fat bribes and a share of the blackmarket oil trade.)
A glance at the map shows that the Basra area is vital to the entire U.S. position in Iraq: It is Iraq's only seaport and controls access to Kuwait. All supply and reinforcements come through Basra, any withdrawals will pass through the same area. This place is too important to leave in the unreliable hands of Shiite militias, and the appointment of a new general, by itself, is not likely to repair the situation.
(Does no one remember how, in 2004, we tried to resolve the situation in Fallujah by appointing a new Iraqi commander? Within weeks, the new comander, Major General Muhammed Latif, was dead, and his troops had fled or gone over to the enemy.)
That Petraeus is more concerned about the Basra situation than he lets on may be judged by his abrupt departure for London, where he will discuss the security situation with the British.
www.abc.net.au/news/stori...2030368.htm
However, it is very doubtful whether the British are still in any position to help.
As Petraeus focuses on counterinsurgency in Bagdad, the rest of the strategic map seems to be falling to pieces: Kurdistan is virtually an independent state, with Iran regularly shelling its eastern border, and most of the Turkish army massing to the north. Western Iraq has been left in the care of Sunni sheiks, whose men, under their new Iraqi uniforms, are the same insurgents we were fighting a little while ago. Southern Iraq is controlled by Shiite militias, influenced by Iran, and if they have been bribed to keep the peace, the Iranians may pay them bigger bribes tomorrow . . . Despite Petraeus's show of confidence, the U.S. position in Iraq is more precarious than ever.
tribes.tribe.net/political...0e4574f991
Bottom line: Little light was cast.
In the Senate, Petraeus came under some heavier guns, and some of his answers seemed to fall short, particularly on the crucial question of Basra. The British have virtually abandoned the southern five provinces of Iraq to Shiite militias, and are presently confined to a single base, which comes under nightly mortar and rocket fire. According to press reports, the transition has been a violent one.
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...01.html
Petraeus took note of the news reports, but reassured the senators that things were now going well:
"Occasionally, folks have said that this is a little like the Italian city-states in Machiavelli's day or something like that. But there's an awful lot of toing and froing, some violence, certainly. And, of course, in some other provinces there has been terrible incidents, where governors were assassinated by elements linked with the militia. But right now, there's actually quite a very low level of attacks and so forth, and has been that way I think for about a month now. . .
"There was the installation of a senior Iraqi general down there -- four-star general who had been working directly for the minister of defense. Quite a forceful individual, I knew from the past, by the way. New police chief, some months back. "
media.washingtonpost.com/wp-sr...7.html
But only a few days before, there was an assassination attempt on the general's intelligence chief in Basra. Two bodyguards died.
patdollard.com/2007/09/06...on-attempt/
In August, two governors of adjoining provinces were assassinated, and a third barely escaped.
www.reuters.com/article/wo...91820070827
In July, a senior Hezbollah militant, responsible for training Shiite fighters under the auspices of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, was captured in Basra:
afp.google.com/article/AL...reZk6FOu7qA
According to Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ), the relative peace which Basra has currently enjoyed is due to tribute paid to Shiite militias in order to keep the port open. (Unconfirmed reports also attribute the defection of Sunni chiefs in Al Anbar province to fat bribes and a share of the blackmarket oil trade.)
A glance at the map shows that the Basra area is vital to the entire U.S. position in Iraq: It is Iraq's only seaport and controls access to Kuwait. All supply and reinforcements come through Basra, any withdrawals will pass through the same area. This place is too important to leave in the unreliable hands of Shiite militias, and the appointment of a new general, by itself, is not likely to repair the situation.
(Does no one remember how, in 2004, we tried to resolve the situation in Fallujah by appointing a new Iraqi commander? Within weeks, the new comander, Major General Muhammed Latif, was dead, and his troops had fled or gone over to the enemy.)
That Petraeus is more concerned about the Basra situation than he lets on may be judged by his abrupt departure for London, where he will discuss the security situation with the British.
www.abc.net.au/news/stori...2030368.htm
However, it is very doubtful whether the British are still in any position to help.
As Petraeus focuses on counterinsurgency in Bagdad, the rest of the strategic map seems to be falling to pieces: Kurdistan is virtually an independent state, with Iran regularly shelling its eastern border, and most of the Turkish army massing to the north. Western Iraq has been left in the care of Sunni sheiks, whose men, under their new Iraqi uniforms, are the same insurgents we were fighting a little while ago. Southern Iraq is controlled by Shiite militias, influenced by Iran, and if they have been bribed to keep the peace, the Iranians may pay them bigger bribes tomorrow . . . Despite Petraeus's show of confidence, the U.S. position in Iraq is more precarious than ever.
posted by:
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Oregon
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Re: Basra
Thu, September 13, 2007 - 10:44 AMPetraeus manages to bring the British out of the barracks, and back to policing the Iranian border:
news.independent.co.uk/world/...462.ece
Controlling the border is good, when it works, but it's a long border, and there isn't any effective way of fencing it off, even if the Brits were at full strength . . . Meanwhile, the Shiites in Basra already have every opportunity to cause us woe, they only need a dock strike . . .
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Re: Basra
Mon, September 17, 2007 - 1:29 PM
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Re: Basra
Tue, September 18, 2007 - 10:50 AMBasra becomes a stronghold for Shiite militants:
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...80.html
www.csmonitor.com/2007/0918...-wome.html
It's the old Whack-A-Mole game: The militias Petraeus is suppressing in Bagdad find sanctuary in Basra . . .
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Re: Basra
Fri, September 21, 2007 - 11:24 AMWhich of these three articles doesn't seem to fit?
Two Sistani aides killed in Iraq
Two aides of Iraq's most senior Shia cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, have been shot dead in separate incidents in southern Iraq.
The ayatollah's office said one of the men, Amjad al-Janabi, had been attacked after leaving a mosque near Basra on Thursday evening.
The other Ahmad al-Barqawi was shot as he drove home to the city of Diwaniya
The killings mean at least five aides of Ayatollah Sistani have been killed since June.
There has been no word on who might be behind the attacks, but correspondents say it could be related to a power struggle among Shia groups in southern Iraq.
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7006555.stm
Senior police officer killed in Basra
Fri, 21 Sep 2007 14:27:22
Source: Agencies
Gunmen have killed a senior police officer and 2 security guards in Basra, hours after the killing of two aides to Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.
An armed group opened fire Friday on the convoy of Colonel Nouri al-Mahmadawi killing him and his two guards instantly. They managed to escape, a Basra police source said.
Gunmen also attacked Iraqi military forces in northern Basra on Friday, took a soldier hostage and transferred him to an unknown place, the source added.
On Thursday, MP Abd Ali al-Musawi from the al-Daawa Party discussed the dismissal of Basra's police chief with Iraqi Premier Nouri al-Maliki, a source close to the party said.
Meanwhile, unidentified gunmen shot dead an Iraqi radio staff, Mohanad al-Obeidi, near a mosque in the Moharebeen neighborhood and escaped. Al-Obeidi worked for the Dar al-Salam radio station.
www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx
September 19, 2007
British exit from Basra has led to drop in violence, says General David Patraeus
America’s top military commander in Iraq acknowledged yesterday that Britain’s recent withdrawal of 500 troops from the centre of Basra and the handover of security responsibility for the city to the Iraqis had already paid dividends.
General David Petraeus, in London to meet Gordon Brown and senior Cabinet ministers, denied that there had been a spat between the United States and Britain over the withdrawal of the British troops from Basra. “I don’t know where that came from,” he said, speaking at a press conference in Whitehall before heading for 10 Downing Street.
General Jack Keane, an architect of the American surge policy of deploying 30,000 additional US troops to Baghdad, indicated recently that there was concern that a British withdrawal would lead to an increase in violence in Basra, and said there were fears that the Americans might have to backfill in the south with their own troops.
www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...5110.ece
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Re: Basra
Sun, September 23, 2007 - 12:00 PMKey to the situation in Basra, the blackmarket in oil:
www.isn.ethz.ch/news/sw/details.cfm
aawsat.com/english/news.asp
www.csmonitor.com/2007/0919...-wome.html
A share of illegal oil revenues is the cookie that keeps the Shiite militias from getting frisky, their stake in the system, but it is a bleeding wound for the central government, which is losing billions . . . since the British pullout, Basra has been in chaos, the last restraints to mass corruption have been removed . . . this will certainly undermine any compromise on the distribution of oil revenues, demanded by the Americans . . .
The peace in Basra is an illusion, like a peace settlement between mafia clans: It's only good until someone decides to break it . . .
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Re: Basra
Mon, September 24, 2007 - 1:26 AMJust when it seemed things couldn't get any worse, cholera arrives in Basra:
Cholera was confirmed Friday in a baby in Basra, the farthest south the outbreak has been detected. Officials expressed concern over a shortage of chlorine needed to prevent the disease from spreading.
A shipment of 100,000 tons of the water purifier has been held up at the Jordanian border over fears the chemical could be used in explosives. Baghdad, which has doubled the amount of chlorine in the drinking water, now has only a week's supply.
World Health Organization spokeswoman Fadela Chaib said in Geneva that Iraq has registered 29,000 cases of acute watery diarrhea, with 1,500 of those confirmed as cholera. All but two confirmed cases are in the north.
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...74.html
In most places, a cholera outbreak would be really big news . . .
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Re: Basra
Thu, September 27, 2007 - 7:27 PMSunni/Shia violence spreads to Basra:
A bomb exploded near the gate of a Sunni mosque near Basra, killing five worshippers and wounding 10 in what may have been retaliation for a suicide bombing Tuesday at Basra police headquarters that killed three officers and wounded 20 other people. Most Basra police are Shias.
www.newsday.com/news/print...74586.story
Though Basra is predominantly Shiite, it appears that Al Qaeda is now using it as a base, due to the lack of Coalition troops . . .
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Re: Basra
Tue, October 2, 2007 - 3:42 PMBritain announces further pullouts:
www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...7958.ece
Formal turnover of the province, already largely in Shiite hands, in November:
afp.google.com/article/AL...lLq9WWiQdJA
Shiite militias terrorize residents with a Taliban-like regime:
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/progr...7022426.stm
The Bush Administration gives the nod to British pullouts:
www.africasia.com/services/...wsitem.php
Focusing on the coming war with Iran, Washington prefers to ignore this grave situation.
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Re: Basra
Wed, October 3, 2007 - 4:54 PMBy Amitai Etzioni
The way the British are abandoning Basra is hardly novel. I saw British troops sneaking out like thieves at night from Palestine in 1947, without turning over their installations or the authority to govern either to the Jewish or to the Arab communities, nor dividing the turf among the contending sides. A bloody war immediately followed. Although the turn over of power in India in 1947 was much more orderly, the parting arrangements the British made were very unstable. They became one reason many hundred thousands of people were driven out of their homes and land and armed strife ensued.
Now the British are claiming that they can leave Basra with impunity because Iraqi forces are ready to take over security there...
...which is about as accurate as if Senator Larry Craig claimed that he went to the public restroom merely to benefit from their conventional use. In effect, Basra is engulfed in a wave of violence propelled by the strife between militias of three Shia factions as well as among various criminal gangs.
www.tpmcafe.com/blog/coffe...sra_lessons
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Re: Basra
Fri, October 5, 2007 - 10:30 PMReligious extremists killing women in Basra, Iraq
By JAY PRICE and ALI OMAR AL-BASRI
McClatchy Newspapers
BASRA, Iraq | Women in Basra have become the targets of a violent campaign by religious extremists, who leave more than 15 female bodies scattered around the city each month, police officers say.
Maj. Gen. Abdel Jalil Khalaf, commander of Basra’s police, said Thursday that self-styled enforcers of religious law threatened, beat and shot women who they thought weren’t sufficiently Muslim.
“This is a new type of terror that Basra is not familiar with,” he said. “These gangs represent only themselves, and they are far outside religious, forgiving instructions of Islam.”
Often, he said, the “crime” is no more than wearing Western clothes or not wearing a head scarf.
www.kansascity.com/news/wor...4219.html
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Re: Basra
Sun, October 7, 2007 - 11:28 AMIraqi army officers in Basra are preparing to make a desperate plea for the return of British troops to patrolling the city to stem rising sectarian killings and political violence.
Up to 40 people are being killed each day in Iraq's second city, say officers who have set a two-week deadline for security to be improved before they approach the British for help.
The Iraqis say that unless the rate of killings can be curtailed, they will have no choice but to call in British forces, at present confined to an airfield on the outskirts of Basra, to resume their previous role.
The officers, from the newly formed national army, have been spurred to set a self-imposed deadline by Gordon Brown's announcement, during his visit to Iraq last week, that 1,000 of the 5,500 British troops who remain in the south will be withdrawn from Iraq by the end of the year.
"We can't control Basra any more," said one Iraqi colonel, who disclosed that political divisions were leading to bloodshed even within the ranks of the army. "Our forces in the streets don't obey us — they obey their parties."
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml
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Re: Basra
Tue, October 9, 2007 - 2:51 PMThe British recently removed their last garrison from within the city to their main base at Basra Airport, saying the Iraqi army was ready to assume control. But gainsaying that claim was the fact that before the troops pulled out, all British and U.S. diplomats in the city were evacuated to the airbase.
"Competing Iraqi factions are currently fighting an intense behind-the-scenes battle for Basra," said Reidar Visser, a Norwegian expert on Basra, in a Web posting yesterday. "The main reason is oil: Basra has more of it than any other place in Iraq. In fact, more than 80 percent of the oil in the Shiite areas of Iraq is concentrated at the head of the Gulf, near Basra."
While the Bush administration continues to insist southern Iraq is relatively stable, there are growing signs of an incipient civil war between competing Shia factions there.
www.newsday.com/news/natio...90972.story
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Re: Basra
Wed, October 10, 2007 - 11:49 AMMr Brown blithely asserted that there were now about 30,000 fully trained Iraqi troops and police capable of maintaining the peace in Basra and the surrounding area. In fact, as the British commanders who briefed him would have been at pains to explain, of that 30,000, the 13,000-strong Iraqi 10th Division, which originally had responsibility for Basra, has had to be relocated away from the city, because most of the recruits are Baswaris, and therefore reluctant to intervene against their fellow city-dwellers lest their relatives are subjected to revenge attacks.
The 15,000-strong Iraqi police force is so riven with corruption that the Iraqi general who has been handed the poisoned chalice of rooting out the worst offenders has been subjected to two assassination attempts in the past month alone, and can only travel around the city in a heavily armed convoy.
Which means that the main task of securing Basra falls to the Iraqi 14th Division, which was only raised in the summer and currently has just half its planned strength of 10,000.
www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml
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Re: Basra
Thu, October 11, 2007 - 11:22 AMBritish Prime Minister Gordon Brown this week announced his plan to reduce the British force around the southern city of Basra from 5,000 to 2,500 by next spring. Drawing less attention, however, is the extent to which American forces have quietly withdrawn from the rest of southern Iraq. By so doing, the U.S. is ceding huge swaths of territory to shaky provincial governments that have to face increasingly powerful Shi'ite militias very much alone.
Small contingents of U.S. soldiers enter Karbala and Najaf only for brief visits with local officials these days, and much of the rest of southern Iraq has no American troops at all. Focused on saving Baghdad, U.S. forces keep up a regular presence with patrols and combat outposts chiefly around the southern reaches of the capital. Meanwhile, the drawdown of British forces in Basra — where the troops have relocated to the local airport outside the city — leaves yet another southern city, with a population of roughly 2 million, unattended by the U.S.-led coalition. That means virtually all of the vast, populous and oil-rich territory stretching from Karbala to Basra is up for grabs.
www.time.com/time/world/...9249,00.html
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Re: Basra
Mon, October 15, 2007 - 2:08 PMBasra oil attack marks dangerous change
Published: 15, 2007 at 4:08 PM
BASRA, Iraq, Oct. 15 (UPI) -- Threats to Iraq’s oil sector have turned south as a guard of a Basra pipeline was killed in a gunfight with would-be bombers.
Iraq’s northern pipeline, which ships crude to Turkey, has been the main target for those disrupting the flow of oil. Attacks have rendered it mostly useless in the past four years, though recent investment in reconstruction and protection has allowed more oil to flow from Kirkuk to Ceyhan, Turkey.
www.upi.com/Internationa..._change/3178/
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Re: Basra
Wed, October 17, 2007 - 7:44 PMShi'ite Islamist political parties are imposing strict Islamic rules in the oil-producing southern provinces of Iraq and using their armed wings to create a state of fear, a group of tribal Shi'ite leaders said.
The four tribal leaders approached Reuters on condition of anonymity, fearing assassination if their names or even their home provinces were made public.
"Fear rules the streets now," said one of the sheikhs. "We cannot speak our minds, people are not allowed to oppose them. They would immediately disappear or get killed. The evidence of that is I am talking about it but cannot use my name."
www.reuters.com/article/id...31320071016
Did we fight a war for this?
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Re: Basra
Fri, October 19, 2007 - 1:04 PMA new U.S. government report suggests that American officials may have little hope of influencing developments in Iraq's southern provinces amid growing concerns about Iranian involvement there.
The report, released Thursday by the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, said that poor security prevents U.S. and coalition civilian officials from meeting with many of their Iraqi counterparts, yet Iranians can travel unmolested in the region.
www.mcclatchydc.com/iraq/sto...0605.html
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Re: Basra
Sun, October 21, 2007 - 10:26 AMThe Wall Street Journal claims that Basra is peaceful:
British troops are on their way out of Basra, and it was widely expected that Iranian-backed Shiite militias would impose a brutal domination of the city, That hasn't happened. Lt. Col. Patrick Sanders, stationed near Basra, confirmed that violence in Basra has dropped precipitously in recent weeks. He gives most of the credit to the work of Iraqi soldiers and police.
online.wsj.com/article/SB...765565.html
However, the London Times reports new fighting, as the Iranians smuggle in arms for a new offensive:
BRITISH special forces have crossed into Iran several times in recent months as part of a secret border war against the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s Al-Quds special forces, defence sources have disclosed.
There have been at least half a dozen intense firefights between the SAS and arms smugglers, a mixture of Iranians and Shi’ite militiamen.
The unreported fighting straddles the border between Iran and Iraq and has also involved the Iranian military firing mortars into Iraq. UK commanders are concerned that Iran is using a militia ceasefire to step up arms supplies in preparation for an offensive against their base at Basra airport.
www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...1726.ece
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Re: Basra
Tue, October 23, 2007 - 11:40 AMLeaders of political parties in Basra, Iraq's southern oil hub, held urgent talks on Tuesday to calm tensions in the volatile city after gunmen clashed with Iraqi security forces, the British military said.
Details of the fighting were sketchy, but British military spokesman Major Jamie Halford-Macleod said shots had been fired at the Shatt-al-Arab Hotel, headquarters of the Iraqi security forces, in the north of Iraq's second city.
Halford-Macleod said gunmen had also opened fire on the provincial joint coordination centre, which British forces pulled out of in late August as part of their withdrawal from the city centre to their main base on the outskirts of Basra.
www.reuters.com/article/mi...USCOL348097
Al Jazeera has a different version of events:
The Mahdi army, the armed group linked to the Shiite Imam, Moqtada al-Sadr, assumed control of the Iraqi city of Basra on Tuesday, according to a report on the Arab satellite TV network Al Jazeera.
The militia took over the city in clashes with the Iraqi police and reports say that the fighting was still going on.
According to Al Jazeera, during the clashes, the local police chief, Muhammad Qaji, was forced to flee the city and the militants took control of the city's main power centres and deployed their men along Basra's main streets.
www.adnkronos.com/AKI/English/Security/
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Re: Basra
Wed, October 24, 2007 - 1:23 PMDetails emerge on the latest fighting:
The police chief of Iraq's southern city of Basra said he escaped an assassination attempt on Wednesday by gunmen who opened fire at him from rooftops while he was getting into his car.
Major-General Abdul-Jelil Khalaf told Reuters by telephone that one of his bodyguards was wounded in the attack at a bustling outdoor market in the centre of Basra, Iraq's second largest city.
The shooting came a day after clashes between the Mehdi Army militia of Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and local security forces in the city. The militiamen freed an imprisoned comrade from the main police headquarters.
www.reuters.com/article/mi...USKHA455146
Basra: Iraqi security forces in the port city of Basra faced their first test since British troops withdrew in September when they faced an armed attack against the main police station on Tuesday.
A gang of gunmen attacked the headquarters and mangaged to free on of their comrades during the clash.
"There has been a misunderstanding," said Haider Jaberi, a member of the Sadr movement's political committee. "Police arrested a member of the Mehdi Army and there were consequences. Now it has been resolved and he has been released."
www.gulfnews.com/region/Ir...62411.html
The "misunderstanding" apparently was that the police chief thought he was in charge . . . the Sadrists have now corrected his error . . .
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Re: Basra
Thu, October 25, 2007 - 11:21 AMDespite the recent clashes, the Salt Lake Tribune assures us that Basra is peaceful:
Basra, too, where British soldiers are pulling out, was said to be on the verge of exploding since Shiite militias backed by Iran supposedly were poised to impose a fundamentalist regime on the city. It isn't happening. Violence in Basra has declined significantly in recent weeks.
www.sltrib.com/opinion/ci_7261421
Meanwhile, the Economist warns that Shiite militias are holding the city in terror:
The police force, set up by the British, is infiltrated by the militias and involved in crime. Some Basra people say the clashes, assassinations, kidnappings, the daily threat of violence and the enforcement of a rigid Islamist code of conduct amount to a “Shia Talibanisation”, with music and wedding parties banned and huge billboards warning women against venturing outside unveiled.
“We live a half-life in Basra,” says a university teacher. “There's no space for life, no parks, theatres, cinemas or space for freedom. Civil and political activities are controlled. When you go outside, the fear is inside you that you may be followed and targeted. We're living in a nightmare.”
www.economist.com/world/afr...ystory.cfm
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Re: Basra
Sun, October 28, 2007 - 3:17 PMMore good news from peaceful Basra:
Britain has always said that it would hand over control of Basra province to the Iraqi authorities only when the Iraqi forces were capable of taking control. But the picture emerging from inside the city suggests that this is far from the case.
Since the withdrawal, attacks on British forces in the region have plummeted, but the level of violence in Basra remains high. Iraqis living in the city say it is now patrolled by death squads. Even the British admit that local Iraqi troops are unwilling to take on the Shia militias. As for the police — as elsewhere in Iraq — they remain ineffective and are heavily infiltrated by members of the militias.
"The army here in Basra is not good," admits Capt Allah Muthfer Abdullah, whose armoured battalion was brought down from Baghdad three months ago to shore up the local forces. "We don't trust them. The army here joins the militias at night and by day they come back to us.
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml
In the turbulent city of Basra, gunmen sprayed a car carrying five bodyguards of the head of the local Sunni Endowments department, killing one of them and injuring the rest, police said.
Also in Basra, a mainly Shiite city 550 kilometers (340 miles) southeast of Baghdad, a local official of the election commission was gunned down late Saturday in front of his house.
The police officials who reported both attacks spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media. They did not give a motive for the attacks.
But while the attack on the bodyguards may have had a sectarian motive — the Sunni Endowment is a state agency that looks after the sect's mosques and seminaries — the second one could have been linked to the widening fight among rival Shiite groups vying for control of the city in the wake of the redeployment outside Basra of British troops.
The fate of the city will be decided when local elections are held, but the national parliament in Baghdad must first pass a legislation creating a mechanism for provincial elections in all 18 provinces of the nation.
The struggle for power in Basra is part of a wider fight by Shiite parties to dominate the mainly Shiite south, with its vast oil wealth and the shrine cities of Najaf and Karbala, visited by millions every year.
www.foxnews.com/story/0,29...708,00.html
U.S. soldiers in Diwaniyah report similar conditions:
On their return in August, all three were shocked at how the situation in the south had unraveled. Shiite militias and criminal gangs had taken over the provincial capital of Diwaniyah, as well as much of the surrounding area.
Lemons says that with so much poverty and unemployment here, the violence — an outgrowth of long-standing problems — should have been predicted.
"Instead of planning for these things, which we could have planned for, we didn't. We let them happen and reacted," Lemons says.
Now, these Marines think that, with their experience, they might just have a chance to make a difference in the south and help embolden people to take on the militias. But they all worry it could be too little, too late.
www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php
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Re: Basra
Mon, October 29, 2007 - 6:20 PMA good analysis of the Hakim-Sadr pact:
Although the reconciliatory nature of the deal is hailed as a major rapprochement in Hakim-Sadr relations, the pact rather masks more familiar problems than reveals a new beginning for Iraq's democratic order. First and foremost, the truce lacks a genuine effort for reconciliation, as the two rival groups still maintain their ideological differences by defining each other as military foes on the street level, rather than as political competitors in the political arena. The deal also shows signs of external manipulation by other major Shiite players, primarily Tehran (and Qom), which is seeking a united Shiite stance against a potential U.S. attack on Iran. As the U.N. Security Council, led by Washington, seeks further sanctions against Iran's nuclear ambitions, Iranian conservatives and hardliners are raising expectations of greater cohesion between Shiite groups under the leadership of Tehran. A new Iraq dominated by a united Shiite force can serve as a powerful instrument to contain U.S. influence in the region, and al-Hakim and al-Sadr could play a leading role in such an endeavor. . . .
Unwisely, a number of U.S. think-tanks and some analysts have quickly rejoiced after the Hakim-Sadr pact and welcomed the new deal as a major victory for Iraq. Such premature triumphalist reaction only exposes the limits of an insular understanding of Iraqi politics that continues to interpret the country's future as a teleological move (though a bumpy one) toward progress that ends with the attainment of a liberal democratic Iraq—understood in its Anglo-American version. This is a grave mistake.
www.jamestown.org/news_details.php
This peace is not for our benefit. Both sides remain deeply hostile to the U.S. and its allies:
The British base at Basra International Airport, 25 kilometers northwest of the city, has come under Katyusha rocket attack.
British forces have fired back at the source of the rockets in the Mohandessin neighborhood, a spokesman for the multinational forces in Iraq, Major Matthew Bird, confirmed.
www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx
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Re: Basra
Wed, October 31, 2007 - 1:13 PMThe defence secretary, Des Browne, today admitted that security in Basra was not at "an acceptable level" as he confirmed British forces would hand over control of the region to Iraqis in mid-December.
Mr Browne was visiting the oil-rich area, 340 miles south-east of Baghdad, which will be the ninth province to revert to Iraqi control.
He acknowledged continued violence in the area, such as clashes and infighting among rival Shia groups, but said it had "reached the stage" where the onus was on the Iraqis to improve the situation
politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/s...00.html
Are the Iraqis up to this challenge?
Uruknet reports Iran is changing tactics:
One of the most important observations of the existing conflict in the south is that the Iranian abandoned their former allies the Supreme Council and the Badr Brigades, using new sectarian elements of Mahdi Army, who are out of Muqtada al-Sadr reach, and no longer consider him a leaders, perhaps one of their repeated slogans says it all:
O..Mahdi [the awaiting Mahdi] …. Al-Sayd [respect title for high rank Shittes clerics] was a soldier and we set him free
That means Al-Sadr was temporarily phase ended
To my information the Iranian Revolution Guards provided Mahdi Army with new Iranian manufactured weapons, including new IED bombs that can install by the roadside and set to jump towards its target.
Also they trained 300 Mahdi Army members to attack Gulf States with airplanes [9/11 method]
uruknet.info/
Turning Sadrists into 9/11 bombers sounds absurd. But it is true that increasing Iranian influence could lead to more suicide attacks . . . Iraqi Shiites have so far been reluctant to use this method, which has been condemned by their ayatollahs . . . but Iran has a history of using suicide attacks, in the Iran/Iraq War, when thousands of brainwashed youngsters were sent to slaughter with plastic "Keys to Paradise" hanging from their necks . . .
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Re: Basra
Wed, November 7, 2007 - 4:08 PMThe police chief in Iraq's second-largest city said he survived a bomb attack Wednesday — the second attempt on his life in less than a week.
Basra Police Chief Maj. Gen. Jalil Khalaf escaped unharmed after his convoy was hit by a roadside bomb early Wednesday. Three of his bodyguards were wounded in the attack, he said.
www.iht.com/articles/ap/...sra-Chief.php
The persistent attempts to kill him suggest he must be doing something right . . . Of more lasting consequence:
Iraq's South Oil Company has commenced laying an oil pipeline between Basra and Iranian ports at Abbadan, across Shatt Al-Arab river, for the export of Iraqi crude, according to an authoritative source at the company on Wednesday.
The source told Kuwait News Agency (KUNA) that the export capacity of the project was 200,000 barrels of crude oil per day, and would not only raise Iraq's exports, but also diversify its export ports.
The Basra-based South Oil Company is the largest Iraqi oil company and is responsible for the production of crude oil in southern fields and its exports from the Basra and Ameeq ports.
www.menafn.com/qn_news_story_s.asp
As the U.S. debates whether to bomb Iran, Iraq moves more and more into the Iranian camp . . .
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Re: Basra
Wed, November 14, 2007 - 1:47 PMThe chief of police in the southern Iraqi city of Basra in an interview published on Tuesday said his officers were engaged in fighting 'countries, not individuals' and were facing 'religious and ideological terrorism' at its strongest.
Abdel-Jalil Khalaf, who survived seven assassination attempts in four months, told pan-Arab newspaper al-Hayat that Basra, 550 kilometres south of Baghdad, was enduring security turmoil.
'The problem is that we are fighting countries that have wide resources, beyond our league,' said Khalaf.
'Even if we succeed in seizing the weapons of the criminals today, more weapons will flow in tomorrow. Our borders are not under our command; they're controlled according to the interests of some politicians in Baghdad and Basra,' he said.
Khalaf told the newspaper that the deteriorating security situation is driving intellectuals and the middle class to leave the city.
news.monstersandcritics.com/midd...chief
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Re: Basra
Thu, November 15, 2007 - 9:13 AMThe chief of police in the southern Iraqi city of Basra has warned of a campaign of violence against women carried out by religious extremists.
It has, Maj-Gen Abdul Jalil Khalaf said, included threats, intimidation and even murder.
Some victims were dressed in indecent clothes by their killers or had notices attached to them, he said.
Women interviewed by the BBC said they no longer dared venture on to Basra's streets without strict Islamic attire.
"There is a terrible repression against women in Basra," Maj-Gen Khalaf told the BBC.
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middl...7095209.stm
Are these the people we "liberated?"
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Re: Basra
Sat, November 17, 2007 - 3:17 PMThe Huffington Post optimistically claims that British withdrawal has brought peace to Basra:
www.huffingtonpost.com/jeffre...17.html
But the real story is that the city is in the iron grip of the Mahdi Army:
The square is dominated by a painting of six men dressed in casual trousers and jackets, behind whom loom the faces of Moqtada al-Sadr, the leader of the Mahdi army, and his father, Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr. The six men, described on the mural as martyrs, are Mahdi army commanders who were killed by the British.
At night, when traffic in the square slows, a group of men gather. These are the sakkaka, or assassins. Their Toyota saloons, chosen for the voluminous boots that can accommodate two bodies with room to spare, stand parked nearby.
The assassins chat, eat kebabs and stroll around in small groups, discussing their sinister trade. They buy and sell names of collaborators, Iraqis who worked for the British, as well as journalists and uncooperative police officers, businessmen and the footsoldiers of other militias.
Depending on the nature of their perceived crime, the price on a collaborator's head can vary from couple of hundred dollars to a few thousand. The most valuable lives these days in Basra are those of the interpreters and contractors who were employed by the British before they withdrew from the city.
Local people lower their eyes when they drive through the square. Gunshots crackle all through the night.
Not far from Hayaniya I met the commander of the Mahdi army's security committees. A dark green liquid had flooded the street outside his house and rocks and bricks had been thrown into the pungent water to form stepping stones. A sheet of corrugated iron was placed in front of his door as a bridge and a doormat.
In the corner of the living room was a wooden table with a desktop computer, a laptop and piles of CDs and books. Behind it sat the commander, a cleric in his early 30s. "We liberated the town from the British," he told me. "That is our victory, achieved with God's help. Basra is the first Iraqi city to be liberated from the occupiers."
He fiddled with the thick ring on his finger. In front of him on the table were two telephones. One, the "Najaf phone", was used only to call Moqtada's office, 250 hundred miles away in the holy city of Najaf. "Now is not the time for to escalate the situation with the British," he said. "They retreated to the airport and that's fine, for now. Our goal is to get rid of the governor of Basra, consolidate our control over the city and finish with the collaborators."
www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Sto...5,00.html
Is this an acceptable situation for the United States?
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Re: Basra
Mon, November 19, 2007 - 10:14 AM"From the tens of thousands of Christian families that used to live in Basra before 2003, only about five hundred remain in the southern city with their eyes on assistance coming from relatives living abroad," Sami Basheer, a Christian from Basra said.
Basra, a predominantly Shiite city in southern Iraq, once a secular city that dealt with people of all religious affiliation with tolerance, has since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003 become a conservative society with Muslim extremists.
"The civic lifestyle in Basra has retreated into a more conservative one, mainly imposed on the society by the Muslim extremists," Amir Shaaya, a Christian, told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI).
uruknet.info/
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Re: Basra
Wed, November 21, 2007 - 11:02 AMMembers of Iran's Revolutionary Guards are training militias and supplying them with weapons in the southern Iraqi province of Basra, independent Iraqi newspaper al-Sabah reported on Wednesday.
'Armed groups from the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, namely the Quds force, are playing a dangerous role in Basra province. Armed groups divided up into subgroups are received in training camps in Iran,' a military source told newspaper.
Those groups have special units and heavy weaponry, including Iranian-made missiles with a range of 27 kilometres as well as Iranian-manufactured explosives, according to the source.
news.monstersandcritics.com/midd...eport