The new Iraqi PM has vowed to crush rebellious Shia militias with an "Iron Fist", declaring Barsra to be in a month-long State of Emergency. The British are starting to be killed in larger and larger numbers and a Brit TV crew was attacked. Problem is the Shia militia and warlords run Basra and most of the south already.
Is the real Iraq War just starting now, where the occupying coalition has to fight the Shia as well as the Sunnis? Is Iran supplying heat-seeking missiles and improved IEDs?
A British helicopter was shot down with what the Brits suspect was a heat-seeking Strela missile.
If the Shia fight Bushco and Blairco, is the war lost? Would Bush start a draft to hang on to the oil, or would he just stay and keep hiring expensive mercenaries as he is doing now while the coailition gets increasingly cut up?
Or is all this lies by the neo-cons to gather excuses to invade Shiite Iran?
Iraq's new prime minister has vowed to crack down with an "iron fist" on gangs threatening security in Basra, the southern city controlled by British forces.
Nuri al-Maliki declared a month-long state of emergency in the city, where two British soldiers were killed on Sunday.
In a televised address during a visit to Basra, he said militants would not be allowed to destabilise the oil-rich region, which has been riven by violence between competing Shia factions in recent months.
"We will beat with an iron fist on the heads of gangs who are manipulating security ... Security is first, second and third. This must be said," Mr Maliki said.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/...
In the past month, nine British soldiers have died in Basra -- five of them in a May 6 helicopter crash which sparked fighting between Iraqis and British troops.
The helicopter was apparently shot down.
Britons were shocked to see jubilant Iraqis pelting British troops with stones, hurling firebombs and shouting slogans in support of a radical Shiite Muslim cleric, after the crash.
The ensuing melee left at least four Iraqis dead, according to hospital officials.
http://www.cnn.com/...
The situation in Basra, where British forces are headquartered, has been exacerbated by a public dispute between the mayor and the local heads of the army and police. The power struggle involves the armed Badr Brigade, the Fadhila party loyal to the Basra governor, Mohammed al-Walli, and the al-Mahdi Army that follows the firebrand cleric Hojatoleslam Moqtada al-Sadr.
"The security men must be able to work without fears and interference of the political parties," Mr al-Maliki said. "Iraq cannot be stable unless the law and the sovereignty of Iraq is respected."
Mr al-Maliki said responsibility for security should be for security forces alone, a reference to the many militias operating in the city. Much of the conflict appears to be driven by rivalry between groups engaged in oil smuggling.
The Basra militias are thought to be funded and supplied increasingly from neighbouring Iran - a point made by Mr al-Maliki when he complained of foreign "infiltrators" crossing the border.
Mr al-Maliki's visit to Basra comes at the end of the bloodiest month for UK forces in Iraq. Nine British service personnel were killed in May, including five who died when their Lynx helicopter was brought down in an insurgent attack and four others killed in two roadside bomb attacks.
Lieutenant-General Sir Rob Fry, who as deputy commander of all multinational forces in Iraq is the most senior British officer in the country, told The Times earlier this month that British troops could be sent in to take on the extremist militias in Basra if the Iraqi army fails to do the job.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/...
Tensions have been worsening in Shiite-dominated southern Iraq, where Britain has about 8,000 soldiers and other countries also have troops.
Al-Maliki said earlier this week that his trip was an effort to "heal the rift and find a solution for what caused the latest events in Basra." He met with tribal sheiks, city officials, army officers, representatives of the main political parties and local residents. About 700 people gathered at an auditorium to hear his address.
In the months after the 2003 invasion, British troops enjoyed relative peace in southern Iraq compared with the restive Sunni regions further north.
But violence in the region has escalated.
Trouble in the region is due in part to the growing influence of radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who led two armed uprisings against U.S.-led forces in 2004 and who has been an outspoken critic of the U.S.-led foreign military mission.
Last September, British troops battled Shiite gunmen in Basra after two British undercover soldiers were seized by police, whose ranks have been infiltrated by Shiite militiamen. British forces staged a raid that freed the men.
Tensions boiled over again in February when the London newspaper News of the World published video images that appeared to show British soldiers beating Iraqi civilians during a riot in Amarah in 2004.
Shiite anger also has been stoked by a perceived shift in U.S. policy since the arrival of U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, a Sunni Muslim who has criticized the Shiite-led Interior Ministry for human rights abuses and made overtures to Sunni insurgents in hopes of getting them to lay down their arms.
http://www.mercurynews.com/...
RUSSIANS' MISSILE HIT OUR LYNX
THE British helicopter shot down by Iraqi terrorists in Basra was hit with a Russian-made heat-seeking missile, say military experts.
A team investigating last weekend's tragedy, in which five service personnel died, believes an SA 14 Strela rocket was used, not a rocket-propelled grenade as first thought.
The shoulder-held SA 14 launcher has been upgraded recently to help it deceive a helicopter's defence systems.
The missile that hit the Royal Navy Lynx helicopter was fired from next to the Basra headquarters of Moqtadr al-Sadr's insurgent Mehdi Army.
http://www.sundaymirror.co.uk/...
The main rivals are the armed Badr organisation, which is close to the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, led by militant Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, and the smaller Fadhila party, whose power base is in Basra. They blame each other for corruption and organised crime and for controlling militias which have infiltrated police units.
The rivalry worsened earlier this month when the governor of Basra province, a member of Fadhila, demanded the dismissal of the city's police chief. Basra residents, meanwhile, criticise the British forces there for allowing the city to slip steadily out of control. Mr Maliki said: "I will go tomorrow with a delegation from the government and from the parliament. We will spare nothing to find a solution."
At the weekend, officials from Fadhila, which controls the governorship of Basra province, said it could halt oil exports to win concessions from Baghdad. During talks to form the government, the party demanded control of the oil ministry.
The post went to Hussein Sharistani, the former nuclear scientist with close ties to Ayatollah Sistani, who took office vowing to stamp out corruption in the country's oil sector. Basra dominates the drilling and export of the majority of Iraq's oil. But oil officials estimate that smugglers, some of whom are linked to the Shia militias, are siphoning millions of dollars a week of much-needed reconstruction revenues.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/...
Southern Iraq is spinning out of control, fueled by millions of dollars of Shia militia oil smuggling. There is little chance Iraqi soldiers can stop this nor can the current number of coalition troops. It is not just a little smuggling, it is major--with estimates of millions of dollars a week lost!
That will buy a lot of weapons and ammunition. Does not look good for George Dubai Bush and his GOP enablers in the Congress.