http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?
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British keep out of Basra's lethal Islamic take-over
By Oliver Poole
(Filed: 15/07/2005)
The bodies of young women began to appear in Basra six weeks ago.
First there was a group of three, then two, and last week the
corpses of six were found, each victim riddled by gunshots and left
on the street to die in pools of blood.
The Iraqi police say they have no strong leads. But it is an open
secret in the port city why they died.
They worked as prostitutes and their killers are widely believed to
be one of the city's armed militias. In recent months they have
become increasingly violent in their campaign to enforce a strict
interpretation of the social code of Islam.
The district where the latest victims were discovered is one of the
city's poorest. Sewage runs beside the pavement and through the
holes in the walls of buildings can be seen thin mattresses and
battered pots and pans.
No one wanted to talk about the details of the murders. "I do not
want to be killed," one man said.
But another told how he had been in a house of "belly dancers"
recently in order to drink alcohol - an illicit activity in Basra -
when a dozen masked men broke down the front door.
"They started hitting the girls and shooting against the walls and
breaking the furniture," he said.
"They bought boxes of vodka and beer outside to smash them. One of
the girls ran outside and she had stones thrown at her.
"Everyone in the place was too frightened to help."
For years Basra opposed Saddam Hussein and suffered massacres under
his dictatorship. It welcomed liberation by the British two years
ago.
It has been spared the worst of the insurgency in Iraq's central
provinces, cocooned by distance and its majority Shia population.
For a visitor from Baghdad the contrast is striking: there are none
of the blast walls that surround the capital's government buildings
and at the night the markets and streets throng with people.
But the calm has come at a price and offers an object lesson to
strategists in western capitals that bringing democracy to the
Middle East can easily usher into power religious forces at odds
with the west.
In January's historic Iraq election a majority of religion-inspired
leaders were elected in Basra, but they have struck a deal with the
militias which have been influential since 2003 and effectively have
free rein in the city.
The militias help impose order and warn of any Sunni infiltrators
but only while working to transform the city into a miniature
theocracy reminiscent of that found across the Shatt al Arab
waterway in Iran.
Pictures of Ayatollah Khomeini, the leader of the 1979 Iranian
revolution, have become a common sight on street corners. Shops
selling musical instruments have been bombed after warnings that
musicians were the "servants of Satan".
Stores selling DVDs report that groups of men inspect their wares to
ensure it contains no items considered too provocative.
Women are approached on the streets and criticised by strangers if
they do not wear a headscarf, while parents who allow their
daughters to play sports have received envelopes with bullets in
them.
The British, who are responsible for the security of the sector,
have refused to intervene, saying that it is a domestic matter of
political and law and order issues. Political parties have been
largely silent.
The city's 41-seat political authority is dominated by the Supreme
Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (Sciri).
This has close links to the Iranian government, and those loyal to
Ayatollah Muhammad Yacoubi, a radical cleric friendly with Moqtada
al-Sadr whose Mahdi army staged two uprisings last summer.
The local Sciri leader, Furat al-Shara, said last month that there
was no need to enshrine Islamic law in the country's legal code
because this was already being done "culturally".
The fact is the largest militias have ties to both these
organisations. Sciri's Badr Brigade has hundreds of followers in
Basra while the Mahdi army, while remaining underground, remains a
potent force.
A number of new smaller groups such as the Vengeance of Allah -
blamed on the streets for the prostitute murders - and Master of the
Martyrs have emerged in recent months. They carry out their deadly
trade in plain clothes, scarves wrapped around their faces.
The police do little. In some cases because of fear, but in others
because officers are themselves members of the same militias.
Gen Hassan al-Sade, the chief of police, recently admitted that he
had lost control of the majority of his officers because of
penetration of the force by members of the militias.
In a blunt assessment of where real power lies, he said: "I trust 25
per cent of my force, no more."
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