Iraq cracks down in Basra
The Shiite city has been torn by fighting among parties and militias that are competing to control the south's oil reserves. A security plan includes a curfew and ban on incoming cars.
BAGHDAD — Prime Minister Nouri Maliki visited the southern port of Basra on Monday in preparation for a new security crackdown in the troubled Shiite Muslim city. Tensions were also apparent in Baghdad, where followers of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada Sadr protested their treatment by Iraqi security forces.
The new Basra security offensive, including a 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew, was announced in a statement from Maliki read on state television late Monday by Maj. Gen. Abdul Kareem Khalaf, spokesman for the Interior Ministry.
"To all those who are outlaws . . . realize that the hands of law and justice will reach them however long it will take," Maliki's statement read.
An additional army battalion arrived in Basra, which until late last year had been administered by the British after the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003. The security plan, called the "Knights' Onslaught," closes all schools for three days and bans vehicles from entering the province until further notice.
Basra has been torn by fighting among Shiite political parties and their militias, which are in competition for the south's lucrative oil reserves. Underscoring the ongoing instability, a bomb exploded near Interior Minister Jawad Bolani's convoy in the city Sunday night, security sources said, and a civilian was killed in an early-morning shootout between police and fighters from Sadr's Mahdi Army in Qurnah, about 45 miles north of Basra.
The withdrawal of British troops from the city in September and the formal hand-over of security responsibility to the Iraqi army and police three months later have failed to pacify Basra. Some American and Iraqi officials in Baghdad have called the controversial moves a failure even as the British government continues to defend them. Iraq's national government is eager to impose its will on Basra, but the city has yet to be tamed despite repeated British and Iraqi offensives against Shiite militias and criminal gangs since 2006.
The capital witnessed its own friction between Shiite factions Monday as the Sadr movement organized protests in west Baghdad. Leaders from Sadr's movement vowed to mount daily protests until the Shiite-run Iraqi government stops targeting its members in raids, releases detainees and apologizes for the conduct of security force members. They accused the government of trying to weaken Sadr's organization ahead of provincial elections scheduled for October.
- Muqtada Sadr orders followers to end fighting Mar 31, 2008
- Iraqi cleric cancels plans for massive protest march Apr 09, 2008
- 3 U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq Apr 08, 2008
