Power struggle embroils Basra

Residents say political violence is leaving corpses on the streets every day.
WASHINGTON POST
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- President Jalal Talabani convened an emergency meeting Thursday to discuss the southern port of Basra, Iraq's second-largest city and the heart of a growing, lethal power struggle among some of the Shiite Muslim religious parties that lead Iraq's governing coalition.
Violence in the south Thursday included a bombing at the home of Basra's police chief. In Najaf, another major city in the Shiite-dominated region, the head of local militias loyal to the radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr was shot dead by police allied with a rival Shiite party.
Political violence across Iraq killed at least two dozen Iraqis. Four U.S. soldiers and their Iraqi interpreter were killed when their patrol hit a bomb northwest of Baghdad, and the U.S. military reported the death Wednesday of an American sailor in the western province of Anbar.
The deaths brought the number of U.S. fatalities in May to about 50, a pace that threatens to make this month one of the deadliest this year for American forces in Iraq.
Shiite factions compete
In Baghdad, Talabani summoned Iraq's two vice presidents to discuss the situation in Basra, where one of the smaller Shiite groups, the Islamic Virtue Party, has been engaging in increasingly open hostilities against other Shiite religious parties.
Basra, which is under the control of British forces, was long seen as one of the more peaceful areas of Iraq after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. The homogeneity of its Shiite population spared it from much of the sectarian violence that wracked western and central Iraq.
But the British troops, who are more hands-off than their American counterparts, are increasingly being accused of allowing militias of the governing Shiite religious parties to infiltrate security forces and seize a large measure of control.
Although the killings of foreign and Iraqi journalists in Basra have limited coverage in the city, residents describe political violence that leaves corpses on the streets daily. Iraqi newspapers this week reported Basra residents fleeing to comparative safety abroad or even in Baghdad.
Political violence
The governor of Basra province, a member of the Islamic Virtue Party, demanded last week the removal of Basra's police chief and local military leader, accusing them of failing to rein in political and sectarian killings. Since then, the unrest has included an attack on a police station; burning of offices of Iraq's most powerful Shiite party, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq; and marches Wednesday that drew thousands of participants.
Talabani assigned Vice President Adel Abdul Mahdi, a member of the Supreme Council, to a task force on the Basra crisis. On Thursday, Abdul Mahdi invoked "the responsibility of the political powers to calm down the situation." In a news conference with his fellow vice president, Tariq al-Hashimi, and Talabani, Abdul Mahdi urged leaders in Basra "not to be diverted by political and party interests when handling the issues of the city."