IRAQ: In Basra, fears for the future
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The attempted assassination of a Shiite cleric in Basra recently has added to locals’ fears that five months after a military crackdown on militias, the gangland-style violence that once plagued the southern oil city is returning. The clergyman, Haidar Ismael, was shot in central Basra on Saturday night and seriously wounded.
According to the Associated Press, Ismael is known as a critic of Shiite militias blamed for much of the past violence in Basra. They include the Mahdi Army of Muqtada Sadr and the Badr Organization, the militia tied to the country’s biggest Shiite political group. Basra has long been a center of the Badr-versus-Sadr rivalry, which was blamed for turning the city into a lawless den of abductions, murder and corruption.
A major military offensive launched in March drove militias off the streets, and Iraqi security forces replaced them, but lately, locals say there are signs the army is losing its grip. ‘We fear the city could fall again into the hands of political violence,’ a senior Iraqi army officer told the Los Angeles Times’ reporter in Basra recently.
Like many others in Basra, he cited upcoming provincial elections expected this year as a reason for growing unrest. Some groups might oppose the vote, fearing a loss at the polls. Others want to put themselves in a position of increased power before any balloting takes place, to bolster their chances at the polls. The end result is bloodshed as gunmen loyal to various groups return to action.
In one of the worst attacks recently, gunmen ambushed a minivan carrying election workers, killing two of them.
Maj. Gen. Mohammad Jawad Hwaidi of the Basra police dismisses the violence as simple tribal or personal disagreements, but not everyone is convinced.
‘Lately we’ve started to hear about a lot of killings,’ said Qassim Abbas Mousawi, a Basra resident. He said barbers, whose trade is considered anti-Islamic by some religious conservatives, were among those being targeted. Before the military offensive, women who did not cover their hair or who wore makeup or Western clothing were targets of religious fanatics who would kill them.
Hussein Jaber Naeem said fear was leading people to retreat back to their homes after four months in which the city had a sense of normalcy. ‘We appeal to the Iraqi government ... to tighten the security measures to prevent the return of the black days,’ he said.
— A Times correspondent in Basra
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