Basra carnage escalates as one person killed every hour

[cal04]

One person is being assassinated in Basra every hour, as order in Iraq's second city disintegrates, according to an Iraqi Defence Ministry official. And a quarter of all Iraqi children suffer from malnutrition, a survey of 20,000 households by the Iraqi government and Unicef says.

The number of violent killings in Basra is now at a level close to that of Baghdad, and marks the failure of the British Army's three-year attempt to quell violence there. Police no longer dare go to the site of a murder because they fear being attacked. The governor of Basra, Mohammed Misbahal-Wa'ili, is trying to sack the city's police chief, claiming that the police have not carried out a single investigation into hundreds of recent assassinations.

The collapse of government authority in Iraq is increasing at every level and leaders in Baghdad have yet to form a cabinet, five months after parliamentary elections on 15 December. Insurgent attacks on American and British troops are also proving more lethal, with 44 US soldiers and seven British killed so far this month, and with daily losses exceeding anything seen for more than a year.

Majid al-Sari, an adviser to the Iraqi Ministry of Defence, describing the situation in Basra to the daily al-Zaman, said that on average one person was being assassinated every hour. Militiamen and tribesmen are often the only real authority. When Sheikh Hassan Jarih al-Karamishi was killed by men dressed in police uniforms at the weekend, Mr Sari said his heavily armed armed tribesmen stormed one police station in south Basra, killing 11 police, and burnt down two other buildings, headquarters for a political party. Tribes who once lived in the marshlands outside Basra are engaged in constant feuds with other tribes. While militias owe allegiance to Shia parties, they are also suspected of receiving funds from Kuwaiti and Iranian intelligence.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article485489.ece

[Demeter]

1. While The pRes. Believes on Weds. What He Believed on Monday...

regardless of what happened on Tuesday! Colbert's problem is the truth isn't funny.

[MadMaddie]

2. If it acts like a civil war and smells like a civil war then.....

it must be a civil war. That region is going to suffer for years due to the negligence of this administration....this is why the United Nations should charge the * cabal, every single one of them with crimes against humanity......To the Hague!!

[Moderator]

3. Kick

[Javaman]

4. Fiefdom is on the march!nt

[Hissyspit]

5. Put this on the Greatest Page, for crying out loud!

If we can have 75 threads there on the Leopold/Rove crap, we can at least put important news there, too.

[Hissyspit]

6. kick again

[Disturbed]

7. Seems that the Brits are going to withdraw soon.

They have lost control of this territory.

[Hissyspit]

8. And Basra was the great success story, remember? n/t

[sabra]

9. just like Afghanistan ...

[gratuitous]

10. C'mon guys, report the good news!

Sure, someone's being murdered every hour in Basra, but you don't talk about the other 59 minutes every hour when someone isn't murdered! Tony Snow wants the media to report the good news, too!

12:00 Nobody murdered
12:01 Nobody murdered
12:02 Nobody murdered
12:03 Oops, somebody got murdered
12:04 Nobody murdered
12:05 Nobody murdered

Oh sure, and your eyes went right to the bad news at 12:03 didn't it? Didn't it?! You bunch of non-troop-supporting, liberal, terrorist appeasers! Shame, shame, shame.

Right Mr. Snow?

[RedEarth]

11. Tragic... absolutely tragic... three years later and one killed/hour

[yellowcanine]

12. More of Freedom's untidiness being demonstrated.

[Roland99]

13. And that's in the "peaceful" south where the Brits did so well.

:sarcasm:

[Bhaisahab]

14. KICK n/t