DAR AL ISLAM - IRAQ: SHI'ITES IN & AROUND BASRA AT EACH OTHERS THROATS, 2 DAYS AFTER THE BRITS LEAVE

Shia factions clash as British troops pull out
James Hider in Baghdad

Gunmen took to the streets of Basra yesterday and shooting erupted between rival Shia factions two days after the British Army vacated a base in the centre of the oil-rich city.

Fighters from the Mahdi Army, the militia of the fundamentalist cleric Hojatoleslam Moqtada al-Sadr, attacked the headquarters of the Fadhila party, which runs the city government, witnesses said. The shooting sparked heavy clashes in which the Fadhila governor’s house was torched.

“Clashes took place between followers of Fadhila and the Sadr office,” Brigadier-General Ali Hammadi, the head of the Basra security committee, said.

“We made contact with both sides to calm the situation, but unfortunately it got worse when a group of the Mahdi Army attacked the Fadhila headquarters, firing rocket-propelled grenades and rifles that set fire in two cars, in addition to causing some minor damage to the building.”
Iraqi troops surrounded the area, declaring a temporary curfew and later managed to bring the situation under control, the brigadier said. Hospital officials said that seven people were wounded in the gunfight, which lasted more than an hour.

It was unclear what triggered the clashes. Some blamed a tribal dispute between the director of the city’s electricity company and his chief engineer. Others said it was an attempt to take control of the base the British handed over to Iraqi troops on Tuesday.

About 100 British soldiers had been based in the position known as the Old State Building, one of three small bases the British intend to hand over to Iraqi forces.

Wary of triggering a deep split in the Shia political community, a senior Fadhila official, Nadim al-Jabiri, tried to deny that any clashes had taken place. “Whatever is happening, there is no problem between us and the Sadrists. There is no way we would clash with them,” he said.

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