Religion, Nationalism, and Terror

Insitute of Peace and War Reporting, Climate of Fear Stymies Basra Reporters, (2-Oct-07

Journalists risk death if they try to report candidly about the troubled city.

By Safa al-Mansoor and Dhiya al-Mussa in Basra

As a reporter for a US-backed radio station in the southern city of Basra, Majid al-Brekan had received threats before - but none like this.

One day in late March, as Brekan slipped into the driver’s seat of his car in front of his house, he noticed three masked men riding on a motorcycle behind him. Fearing trouble, Brekan quickly turned on his ignition and slammed on the accelerator. The men shot and damaged his car, but Brekan escaped without injury.

The incident shook the journalist so much that he decided to flee his home city. The press is not free in the southern oil-rich city, said Brekan bitterly, because journalists are in harm’s way.

“We are fearful and cautious about our work,” said Brekan, who works for Radio Sawa - an Arabic language radio station, funded by the United States government and broadcast throughout Iraq. “We can’t report the full story in detail because no one protects us.”

Local journalists who remain describe a climate of fear. They work quietly, not wanting to incite the wrath of the local Shia militias or Islamic parties that have taken control of the city since British forces stationed there handed it back to be governed by locals.

These include Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s political wing and Sadr’s Mehdi Army militia; the Shia Fadheela Party, which holds substantial political power in Basra; and the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council and its Badr Organisation, which Iraqi exiles in Iran founded in 1982 to oppose former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein’s regime. Basra’s Sunni citizens have largely been pushed out of the province.

Journalists say that openly criticising political parties or militias is a “red line” not to be crossed

Rival Shiites in Iraq agree to truce - Los Angeles Times, October 7, 2007

BAGHDAD — Radical Shiite cleric Muqtada Sadr and his chief rival, Abdelaziz Hakim, reached a truce Saturday to end bloodshed between their loyalists that has killed scores of Iraqis and raised fears of a new front in the Iraq war.

Officials of Hakim’s Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council said the deal was hammered out during a 4 1/2 -hour meeting between the Shiite Muslim leaders, whose militias have been vying for control of oil-rich southern Iraq. Both sides said they would reveal details today.

Religious extremists killing women in Basra, Iraq, McClatchy Newspapers, www.kansascity.com, October 4, 2007

BASRA, Iraq | Women in Basra have become the targets of a violent campaign by religious extremists, who leave more than 15 female bodies scattered around the city each month, police officers say.

Maj. Gen. Abdel Jalil Khalaf, commander of Basra’s police, said Thursday that self-styled enforcers of religious law threatened, beat and shot women who they thought weren’t sufficiently Muslim….Often, he said, the “crime” is no more than wearing Western clothes or not wearing a head scarf….

The vigilantes patrol the streets of Basra on motorbikes or in cars with dark-tinted windows and no license plates. They accost women who are not wearing the traditional robe and head scarf known as hijab. Religious extremists in the city also have been known to attack men for clothes or haircuts deemed too Western.Like all of southern Iraq, Basra is populated mostly by Shiite Muslims, so sectarian violence is not a major problem, but security has deteriorated as Shiite militias fight each other for power. British troops in the area pulled out last month.

1,000 troops ‘home by Christmas’ as Iraq takes command of Basra - Times Online, October 3, 2007

Gordon Brown used a surprise visit to Iraq yesterday to announce the withdrawal of 1,000 British troops by Christmas, bringing the military presence down to 4,500.

Downing Street acknowledged that 500 of the 1,000-man cutback had been announced in June by Des Browne, the Defence Secretary.There are 5,250 British troops in Iraq, all based at the fortified Basra airbase outside the city.

…Iyad Allawi, a former Iraqi Prime Minister, claimed in an interview with The Times that fighting between rival Shia militias in the south, some backed by Iran, meant that Basra was on “the verge of explosion”.

In a snapshot of the unrest, the Basra police chief survived a third assassination attempt on Monday after a roadside bomb exploded near his car. In addition, the Basra council remains in crisis after a failed attempt to oust its governor.

Many Trainees Are Complicit With Enemy Targets - washingtonpost.com, September 4, 2007

Building up the capabilities of the Iraqi security forces has been a pillar of Gen. David H. Petraeuss counterinsurgency strategy in Iraq, but the Iraqi army in Kadhimiyah is so thoroughly infiltrated with Mahdi Army militiamen that U.S. and Iraqi soldiers say it is close to useless. Iraqi soldiers in Kadhimiyah have been arrested and accused of attacking Americans and other Iraqi troops. Those who are not affiliated with the militia, which is loyal to the radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, tend to be too frightened for their families to pursue their corrupt colleagues.