Where There Was One Enemy, Now There Are Many...

[bridgit]

'Amid the posters of Muqtada al-Sadr and other radical clerics plastered across Basra, the face of a small wide-eyed child stares forth from a far more insignificant circular.

The handwritten inscription below explains his family are desperate for information about the little boy, aged no more than five. But the Baswaris appeared not to notice it on their way to market. "Probably kidnapped," one man said dismissively as if it was too ordinary an occurrence these days to merit further discussion.

"If you ask anybody in Basra, they would tell you most of the crimes committed, the assassinations, they are carried out by policemen in police cars," said Major General Abdul Latif Thua'Aban, head of Iraqi army's 10 division, recently. He insisted his soldiers, who now command far more respect both locally and among the multi-national forces, are doing their best to stabilise the region.' http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0601-04.htm