KUWAIT TIMES: CALM BEFORE THE STORM: BASRA RESIDENTS FEAR THE WORSE

BASRA: Cleaning up their shops and venturing out onto the streets after a week of bloody clashes, Iraqis in the southern city of Basra said on Wednesday they feared worse violence was to come.

Published Date: April 03, 2008
http://www.kuwaittimes.net/read_news.php?newsid=MzE4OTA2MjM

Basra, Iraq's oil hub, has been relatively calm for the past three days since Shiite cleric Moqtada Al-Sadr ordered fighters from his Mehdi Army militia off the streets after they fought pitched battles with Iraqi security forces.

But Sadr has rebuffed an order by Shiite Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki for the Mehdi Army to hand over its weapons and many fear more violence, especially in the lead-up to provincial elections due by October.I think these battles will continue and in an even fiercer way as things are not finished yet," said Nadhum Jameel, a 51-year-old government employee. "The militias are still powerful.

Maliki achieved nothing and didn't succeed in disarming them.The Interior Ministry has said 210 people were killed and 600 wounded in Basra during the fighting, which exposed a deep rift between parties in the government and followers of the populist cleric Sadr, who supported Maliki's rise to power in 2006 but withdrew his support a year later.

Shiite parties and militias and have been jockeying for power in Basra for years in a battle that is expected to escalate before the provincial elections.The situation is calm but (security) operations are still going on and I think it will ignite again. I am thinking of leaving the city," said Zuhair Abdullah, 34, a metal worker.

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