Iraq’s Shiite south wrestles with crime surge
Security vacuum created by ISIS fight in the north has led to violence elsewhere
BAGHDAD— As the sun sets over Iraq’s southern city of Basra, Ahmed Hilal rushes to lock his door. At night, every knock sends his heart beating faster. In the morning, the father of three or someone he trusts walks his children to school, barely five minutes away.
Fear has become part of daily life amid a surge of violence in Basra, where rampant crime, kidnappings and extortion have become commonplace. Marauding Shiite militiamen drive around in cars with tinted windows and without plates, while local clans wage bloody feuds. “If someone knocks on the door, I pray to God that nothing bad will happen,” said Hilal, 40, a school employee. “Any sound of shooting, even if it’s far away, scares us.”
Basra and Iraq’s southern Shiite heartland were spared from the Islamic State group, which seized much of northern and western Iraq in 2014. But as Iraq has struggled to combat the group, security forces have increasingly been redeployed from the south, leaving a security vacuum that has been filled by unruly militias and criminal gangs.
Local officials blame the lack of po- lice for soaring theft, armed robberies, kidnappings for ransom, bloody tribal disputes and an uptick in drug trafficking. Residents complain that infighting over government posts and the growing influence of Shiite militias have exacerbated the situation.
Last month, Hilal’s nephew was shot and killed in broad daylight by car thieves. The young man’s last moments were caught by the surveillance camera of a nearby store. The video shows him trying to run away from the car with the keys after pulling over. One of the attackers chases after him and guns him down before the carjackers speed away.
A Basra security official said an Iraqi military division of about 8,000 troops redeployed from the region in late 2014 to join the fight against Islamic State, along with a police battalion of about 500 troops, leaving nine incomplete police battalions and only one army battalion for the entire Basra province, which has a population of about three million.
The result, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss security matters with the media, has been a wave of armed robberies, as well as a resurgence in tribal clashes and an increase in drug trafficking from neighbouring Iran to Gulf Arab states.
Local officials contacted by The Associated Press declined to give specific figures on the violence, but Basra councilman Ahmed Abdul-Hussein was quoted by a local newspaper as saying that police registered 1,200 criminal cases in the past four months, mainly killings, kidnappings, robberies and tribal disputes.
Basra, about 550 kilometres southeast of Baghdad, is Iraq’s secondlargest province and home to about 70 per cent of its proven oil reserves of 143.1 billion barrels.
Several Basra residents, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity fearing for their safety, painted a picture of pervasive lawlessness. Armed tribesmen fight each other and sometimes besiege oilfields, demanding jobs for their sons, they said.
Basra Gov. Majid al-Nasrawi recounted a November heist in which a gang robbed employees of a local security company who were on their way to their office from a bank with the equivalent of nearly $1 million in cash for company salaries. Police arrested some of the gang members in December but only retrieved about half the money.
In recent months, Basra activists have staged protests to demand the resignation of senior local officials, and better security and public services. They also recently launched a campaign titled “Stop the Killing” to draw attention to the violence, activist Haider Abdul-Amir Salman said.
“Basra is suffering,” said Salman. “And the crimes won’t stop as long as weapons are everywhere and the tribes protect the criminals.”