Government in Iraq takes control of Basra

The handover marks the start of the end of almost five years of British support for the occupation of Iraq.

MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS

BASRA, Iraq — British forces handed over security responsibility for the key Iraqi port and oil-rich southern province of Basra to the Iraqi government Sunday, leaving some residents fearful of intensified militia clashes and Shiite extremism.

Meanwhile, in northern Iraq, Turkish military planes hit Kurdish border towns in a three-hour attack aimed at the Kurdistan Workers Party, a violent separatist movement that seeks to establish a Kurdish homeland in southeastern Turkey. One woman was killed, a local mayor said, and hundreds of families fled their homes.

The Basra handover, at the airport to which 5,000 British forces withdrew last summer to escape withering attacks in the port city, marks the beginning of the end of nearly five years of British support for the occupation of Iraq. Basra was the last of four provinces that British forces controlled and their troop presence is due to fall to 2,500 or less by spring.

“I came to rid Basra of its enemies and I now formally hand Basra back to its friends,” said the British commander, Maj. Gen. Graham Binns, in a ceremony held in the airport’s departure lounge.

British officials say attacks have dropped in recent months in the city, although they no longer patrol there.

Now they will only enter in times of crisis.

National Security Adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie, the top Iraqi military man present, said after the ceremony: “We have huge challenges ahead of us. We have yet to declare victory. But we are on the right track.” He urged unity among local leaders.

The Iraqi government and British officials said that 30,000 British-trained Iraqi troops are ready to provide security to Basra.

Although leaders hailed the handover as a sign of sovereignty and progress for the Iraqi security forces, the ceremony meant little to many residents.

“During the last few months the Iraqi security forces were the ones who kept security in the city and that’s what increased the confusion and disturbance of security in Basra,” said Safaa Issa, a master’s student at the college of education in Basra. Other residents said much the same.

In Basra it is not Sunni extremists that are the problem but at least three dueling Shiite groups struggling for power. The Mahdi Army, the militia loyal to radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, currently dominates.

Residents say religious and personal freedoms are deteriorating as Shiite militias impose merciless religious ideologies. In the last six months, scores of women have been killed for not veiling their hair, wearing makeup or for acting inappropriately, according to an Iraqi police official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the numbers.

In Safaa Issa’s view, the killings and the threats since the British withdrawal from the city are the clearest sign that Iraqi security forces are inadequate.

This kind of extremism will grow if the Iraqi forces can’t keep the city out of the hands of Shiite militias. Indeed, the Mahdi Army hailed the British withdrawal from the second largest city in Iraq in September as a victory. Attacks dropped against the British under an agreement with security forces that they would not enter the city.

Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno, the No. 2 American military commander in Iraq, told a group of reporters in Baghdad that he considered the British handover “the right thing to do.”

“It is a Shiite predominant portion of Iraq,” he said. “We think it’s a problem better solved by Iraqis because it’s mostly a communal struggle for power in the south. It is Shiite elements trying to decide who is going to be in charge in Basra. We want the Iraqi security forces and the government of Iraq to handle this.”