Free Iraq
The US's occupation of Iraq will see to it that the Lion of Babylon rises again ..
سنـُبعـَث ُ من جَديد ، وإلى ضَـيـرِِهِـم
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Meanwhile, in "Liberated" Basra
.
" The billboard in Umm al-Broom Square was meant to advertise a cellphone service. Instead, it has become a message to those who dare to resist the rising tide of fundamentalist Islam in Iraq's second largest city.
The female model's face is now covered with black paint. Graffiti scrawled below reads, "No! No to unveiled women."
That message joins the chorus of ultraconservative voices and radical militias that are transforming this once liberal port city that boasted some of Iraq's most lively nightclubs into a bastion for hard-line Shiite Islamists since the fall of Saddam Hussein. Now, as the British prepare to exit Basra Province altogether after pulling out from this provincial capital last week, they leave behind what has been described by many here as an emerging "Shiite Taliban state," a reference to Sunni extremists in Afghanistan."'Shiite Taliban' rises as British depart Basra September 18, 2007"At the entrance to the headquarters of the South Oil Company (SOC) in Basra, a sign dating from when Saddam Hussein nationalized the oil industry in 1972 reads: "Our oil is ours."
Inside, an exasperated senior official, who did not want to be identified for fear of retribution, describes the onslaught by parties and militias intent on controlling the company by forcing their loyalists into key management positions. Some are beholden to the Ministry of Oil in Baghdad, which is controlled by the United Iraqi Alliance (UIA), the dominant Shiite coalition to which Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki belongs.
"There is an invasion by parties and militias … we are a mouthwatering prize," he says, adding that recently 8,000 people, most of them illiterate, were pushed on to the company's payrolls.
The power plays extend to Basra's ports, too, often contributing to anger and a sense of injustice among the province's estimated 3 million people. In the town of Abu Al-Khaseeb, south of the city, the newly rich are building palatial homes next to mud huts. The mansions often belong to those who have been able to cash in on the brisk business in the town's Abu Flous port, which is one the province's main four ports and is widely considered to be controlled by the mafialike family, Bayet Ashour, and certain militias.
"You can only work at the port if you join a militia. I thought about it, but then my two cousins who had joined were badly wounded in a clash. So now we just sit home and shut up," says resident Jalal Ali.
Last month, armed tribesmen forcefully brought oil production to a standstill at the Majnoon oil field, 38 miles north of Basra city, after the SOC refused to meet their demands for jobs in the area. An official at the company, which controls oil exploration and production throughout southern Iraq, confirmed the incident. " Basra oil fuels fight to control Iraq's economic might September 18, 2007
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