[NYTr] Driven Outta Town: British troops qut Basra in Darkness

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

sent by Dave Muller (southnews)

Reuters - Sep 3, 2007

British troops quit Basra

Correspondents in Basra

BRITISH troops were quitting the southern Iraqi city of Basra today in 
another step towards handing over the province to Iraqi control and 
paving the way for an eventual withdrawal of British forces from Iraq.

A British Ministry of Defence source in London said troops were pulling 
out of Basra Palace, which was built for Saddam Hussein, in the city 
centre and withdrawing to the vast British airbase on the outskirts of 
the city.

"The troops are coming out," the source said.

British military officials in Basra declined to comment but a source at 
the Iraqi Ministry of Defence in the city said Iraqi troops were now 
inside the palace.

One Reuters witness said he could see helicopters taking off and
landing at the palace.

The withdrawal means the end of a British presence in the volatile city 
for the first time since the US-led invasion that toppled Saddam
Hussein in 2003.

It is part of plans to transfer security control of Basra province, 
expected before the end of the year.

The Sunday Times reported today that Britain was preparing to hand over 
control of Basra province to the Iraqi army as early as next month.

British forces, however, will remain in an "overwatch role" and
continue training Iraqi security forces as well as guard key land
supply routes from neighbouring Kuwait.

Britain has already handed over three other provinces in southern Iraq.

Some 500 troops had been based at the palace, which was bombarded daily 
by mortar and rocket fire.

The withdrawal from the palace will lead to a reduction in the number
of British soldiers in Iraq to about 5000. All are based at the
airbase, which is also attacked daily.

Attacks on British troops by Shiite militias have surged - 41 British 
soldiers have been killed in southern Iraq this year, the highest
number of casualties suffered by the British since the first year of
the war.

Basra, Iraq's second largest city, is strategically vital as the hub of 
southern oil fields that produce nearly all of the government's
revenue, and the centre of imports and exports through the Gulf.

It has witnessed a turf war between rival Shiite groups, including 
supporters of fiery cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, the Supreme Iraqi Islamic 
Council and smaller Fadhila party, mainly for political supremacy and 
control of illegal oil traffic.

While residents say there is now a fragile calm between the rival 
groups, there are fears that the British withdrawal will be accompanied 
by an upsurge in factional violence.

In Baghdad, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki responded to critics in the
US Congress, saying his government had kept Iraq from plunging into 
sectarian civil war.

Mr Maliki said his critics had crossed what he called a "reasonable 
line" and were encouraging militants trying to destabilise Iraq.

Democratic presidential hopeful Senator Hillary Clinton and other US 
lawmakers have called for Iraq's parliament to replace Mr Maliki, a 
Shiite Islamist.

"They do not realise the size of the disaster that Iraq has passed 
through and the big role of this government, a government of national 
unity. The most important achievement is it stopped a sectarian and 
civil war," Mr Maliki said.

His comments came just over a week before US President George W. Bush's 
top officials in Iraq present pivotal reports on the country's security 
and political situation.

Mr Maliki said he did not want to prejudge the testimony by US 
commander, General David Petraeus, and Ambassador Ryan Crocker, which
is to be delivered to Congress on September 10.

He is under mounting pressure from officials in Washington to show 
progress towards reconciling warring majority Shiite Muslims and 
minority Sunni Arabs.

Tens of thousands of Iraqis have been killed since the bombing of a 
revered Shiite shrine in the town of Samarra in February 2006 unleashed 
a wave of sectarian bloodshed that pushed the country to the brink of 
all-out civil war.

Democrats in Congress have criticised Mr Bush's Iraq policy and along 
with some senior Republicans have called for US troops to begin pulling 
out as soon as possible.

                           ***

Dhiya Mousa (ICR No. 231, 30-Aug-07)
http://www.iwpr.net/?p=icr&s=f&o=338214&apc_state=henpicr


Conflict in Basra Spreads to Campus

Students linked to rival Shia parties and militias are throwing their 
weight around at the University of Basra.

Students with links to the political and religious parties vying for 
control of the southern city of Basra are intimidating both lecturers 
and classmates at university.

"Either you let me pass this class, or you will be in danger," is 
typical of the threats received by lecturers at the University of Basra 
from students attempting to use their political  and paramilitary  
connections to get better grades.

Students at the university, which has 17 colleges with 34,000 students 
and 2,000 lecturers and assistants, complain that politicised
classmates are harassing them and telling them what to wear and how to
behave.

Some lecturers say that this threatening behaviour, which causes 
conflict and feuds on campus, shows how the local political parties are 
trying to exert control and disrupt university life through their 
student supporters.

Conditions in the universities are already difficult. Ongoing security 
problems cause classes to be suspended for days at a time, and there is 
a severe shortage of teaching materials. At many colleges, the 
curriculum has not been changed since the Seventies or Eighties.

Some lecturers have already fled the city to escape the threat to their 
lives posed by a campaign to kill university professors, lecturers and 
intellectuals throughout Iraq, which began in 2004.

No one knows who is orchestrating this campaign, the latest victim of 
which was Mohammed Aziz, a professor at the College of Fine Arts in 
Basra, who was killed in May.

A source at Basra university, who spoke anonymously for fear of 
assassination, said a total of 362 lecturers have been killed in 
Baghdad, Basra, Mosul and Najaf since the campaign began.

Local security and education officials refused to provide information 
about the number of lecturers who have left or have been killed in 
Basra. According to figures from the Iraqi ministry of higher
education, 4,500 lecturers have left the country since March 2003.

Inside the University of Basra, posters supporting religious and 
political celebrities are plastered on walls  graphic evidence of the 
way politics has infiltrated campus life, a development that many 
students dislike.

Basra province has become a battlefield for Shia parties, militias and 
clerics jostling for control of the citys rich oil reserves as well as 
its Gulf seaport, through which oil is exported and vital goods are 
imported. The Supreme Islamic Council, the Dawa Party, and the Mahdi 
Army of hardliner Muqtada al-Sadr compete to control the provincial 
council, which is currently led by the Fadhila Party.

One of the first signs that religious militias would try to impose 
restrictions on students daily lives came in March 2005, when Shia 
paramilitaries aligned with al-Sadr attacked a group of engineering 
students having a picnic at al-Andalus Park in downtown Basra. Armed 
with rubber cables and sticks, the militias beat the students and took 
some of them away in pickup trucks. The attack reportedly left one 
Christian girl dead.

The students had offended the militiamen because the men were dancing 
and singing, and mixing with female students.

In protests sparked by the attacks, students called for an end to 
political interference in university affairs.

"The incident [rang] alarm bells about the worsening situation at the 
universities because of intervention by members of religious parties," 
said Muhannad al-Mansoori, a student at Basra University.

Students say little has changed since then.

Rasha al-Bahadli, 23, who is studying agriculture, said his peers 
continue to be harassed by classmates affiliated with Islamic parties. 
"They ask us to change the ringtones of our mobile phones, our clothes 
or our hair styles, all allegedly in the name of religion," he said.

Lecturers also come under pressure from political groups, often to help 
failing students pass their exams.

Last June, a student with links to an Islamic party attacked a lecturer 
at the College of Education because he refused to mark up his grades so 
he could pass the class.

A witness said that lecturers and students watched the fight but no one 
dared intervene, and the attacks only subsided when the professor got a 
his pistol out of his car and fired warning shots into the air to scare 
off his attacker and disperse the crowd.

Hakim al-Mayyahi, head of the security committee at Basras provincial 
council, accused neighbouring states of being behind the attacks on 
university teaching staff. He refused to say which country he had in 
mind, but said "some of them are acting according to a very dangerous
plan".

Many lecturers are more worried about political actors closer to home. 
They complain that the local security forces have been infiltrated by 
political parties, and say this makes them hesitant to report threats 
and abuse.

Mayyahi confirmed there was "wrongdoing" within the security services, 
but insisted, "this does not mean there is no trust".

He said that many of the problems had already been solved and that the 
provincial council had asked both the security forces and political 
parties not to intrude on the university campus.

Any incidents that had been reported were "individual acts by certain 
party members", he said, rather than part of some wider campaign.

But Abu Mohammed al-Ibrahimi, who lectures at Basra University,
disagrees.

"Extremist Islamic parties in Basra control everything," he said. "They 
impose their agenda on people through their militias who threaten and 
kill people."

[Dhiya Mousa is an IWPR contributor in southern Iraq.]


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