Nasiriya is the largest city in the province of Dhi Qar, and, according to Az-Zaman, was seen as a relatively calm and secure zone. Nasiriya was the first Iraqi city to have its security responsibilities handed over to the Iraqi authorities a few months back, the paper added.
Reports remain conflicting as to the cause of the confrontations, but the events of yesterday revealed a little-discussed facet of post-invasion Iraq: the division of the Iraqi South into zones of influence that are under the full control of armed political parties.
Al-Hayat wrote: “the confrontations in Nasiriya between the Mahdi Army ... and the local police, dominated by the ‘Supreme Council’ of 'abd al-'Azeez al-Hakeem, have shown the depth of the discord between Shi'a parties and their competition over the centers of influence and financial resources in southern Iraq.”
Az-Zaman, on the other hand, said that the conflict started when two Sadrist members of the Mahdi Army, accused of planting IEDs, were arrested by the SIIC-dominated police. Upon the police’s refusal to release the two Sadrists, clashes erupted with the Mahdi Amry attacking the police station, in an attempt to release those arrested by force. Soon enough, confrontations between Sadrists and the police were raging throughout the city and spreading to neighboring localities.
According to Az-Zaman, “informed sources” warned that “Nasiriya may have fallen in the hands of the Mahdi Army.” The newspaper also reported that hundreds of Sadrist militiamen have been mobilized throughout the Iraqi south, and that “intelligence sources” indicated that over 200 members of the Mahdi Army were brought into the city of Diwaniya (another potential scene of confrontation between the Sadr Current and SIIC) just before clashes erupted in that city as well.
Iraqi Army sources in Diwaniya said that an Iraqi soldier was killed by a sniper, without specifying the identity or the affiliation of the shooter. Similar clashes erupted, according to Az-Zaman, in the county of Shatra, where Sadrists attacked the police station, resulting in the death of two civilians and the injury of seven policemen. Sources in Shatra told Az-Zaman that a curfew was imposed on the area in an attempt to prevent the militia from calling in reinforcements.
The situation in the South could get more dramatic, as newspapers reported tensions in the city of Basra, Iraq’s second largest, between different Shi'a parties “vying to control the city’s tremendous oil wealth.”
Al-Hayat spoke to a Sadrist leader, Sadiq al-'Abadi, who headed a delegation that was sent to Nasiriya to negotiate a cease-fire. Al-'Abadi told the paper that “the provocations of the security forces and their loyalties for specific parties have flared the confrontations.”
Al-Hayat predicted that similar turf wars will erupt, sooner or later, in Iraqi Shi'a cities, due to a system of “legalized corruption,” whereby parties control the state apparatus and financial resources in the areas where they establish their control. These arrangements –- predictably -- turned into power struggles over contested areas.
The newspaper provided an excellent overview of the competition between Shi'a parties in southern cities. Al-Fadhila, al-Hayat said, controls the local government in Basra, along with the “trade networks, the city’s port ...and the oil-smuggling networks.” SIIC, which has a strong presence in the city’s security forces, competes with Fadhila over influence in the city, along with the Sadrists, who have a more limited presence in the state institutions.
The struggle in the city of 'Amara, al-Hayat said, was largely decided in the favor of SIIC, which also controls the province of Dhi Qar.
In Diwaniya, al-Hayat explained, the local tribes sided with al-Hakeem’s SIIC against the Sadrist Current, which resulted in a round of violence last April, culminating in the intervention of US forces.
Other players may be involved in these turf wars, the newspaper said, chiefly Iran, “which is accused of infiltrating southern Iraq and building influence among the different parties,” the report claimed.
Lastly, it would be relevant to mention that Iraqi and US officials had accused Muqtada al-Sadr of “smuggling” the Mahdi Army fighters from Baghdad into the South, at the dawn of the ‘Security Plan’ early this year.
