Hundreds of Iraqis are fleeing Basra for Baghdad every day

[grytpype]

The news article is in Arabic, so I will link to Juan Cole's site.

It looks like Basra, once a peaceful success story, has become worse than Baghdad!

http://www.juancole.com/2006/05/42-iraqis-3-gis-dead-in-civil-war.html

Al-Zaman reports that hundreds of Iraqis are fleeing Basra for Baghdad every day because security is even worse in the southern port city than in the capital. The armed gangs that dominate the city are also interfering with oil exports. The paper's sources say that thousands of Iraqis once resident in Basra are living with relatives in Baghdad, waiting for the security situation to improve in the southern port city. Wealthier Basrawis, fearful of being assassinated or kidnapped by the gangs, have come up to Baghdad and rented homes for their families.

Death squads are responsible for the 700 to 800 assassinations during the past month in Basra. President Jalal Talabani has asked Vice President Adil Abdul Mahdi (SCIRI) to take over the security file for Basra. Local police are helpless, the report says, in the face of tribal fueding and the sinister role played by the intelligence services of neighboring countries. Attempts had been made to mediate between the warring parties, by the representatives of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani and other great clergymen and merchants, but those have come to nothing and a new framework is needed. The oil port is being guarded by patrols of the mainly British multinational force. The militiamen and armed gaings have begun setting up temporary checkpoints on most streets of Basra to check on the identitity of passers-by and the passengers in automobiles.

[Inland]

1. Fleeing Basra. For Baghdad.

It reminds me of the stories of christians fleeing Iraq to Syria. It says something about the level of civil strife and ethnic cleansing.

[DrDebug]

2. Mission Accomplished

During the Ottoman Empire the Basrah province included Kuwait. The British decided to split the province in a northern and southern half and making the southern half a seperate country. The main reason was to block the direct access of Iraq to the sea; even though Iraq has a harbor in Basrah it can only be used by smaller boats.

The division of Kuwait and preventing Iraq from having a real harbor is the root problem which caused the wars between Iraq and Kuwait and the 1990 occupation of Kuwait. Since the people in Basrah are Kuwaiti there was a huge support for the invasion of Iraq and it was one of the most loyal cities. So it took three years to turn friends into foes. Mission accomplished.

[malaise]

4. Remember those two Brits

posing as Iraqis. Same old modus operandi - divide and conquer.
Meanwhile dozens died yesterday including three more US soldiers.
Where have all the flowers gone...gone to graveyards everyone. Please tell Rummy.

[grytpype]

5. Sorry, but if you think this is what they wanted you're loony.

Chaos was not the plan. The plan was to install Chalabi as a puppet and rule over a nice, stable, USA-friendly Iraq. The chaos is their worst nightmare.

[grytpype]

3. Mods, this is LBN and it is important LBN.

No question. It was posted 2.5 hours ago on Juan's site. The article is not in English so there's no sense in linking to it.