Posted on 09/20/2005 4:28:46 AM PDT by Wiz
THE violence that erupted on the streets of Basra yesterday was the result of a simmering struggle between British forces and the increasingly powerful Shia Muslim militias active in southern Iraq.
Attention has been focused on the Sunni Muslim insurgency against US-led forces further north, yet the British have been facing a sharp rise in attacks from an increasingly sophisticated and deadly foe.
There are strong suspicions that the bloodshed is being orchestrated with weapons and encouragement from Iran.
The clashes and the arrest of two undercover soldiers was almost certainly triggered by the arrest at the weekend of Sheikh Ahmed al-Fartusi, the leader of the Mahdi Army, a banned militia loyal to Moqtada al-Sadr. He was seized by British troops in a raid that also netted his brother and another colleague.
“The operation is the result of an ongoing multinational force investigation that identified individuals believed to be responsible for organising terrorist attacks against multinational forces,” said a statement released by the British military on Sunday after the deaths of six British soldiers and two security guards over the past two months.
Al-Sadr’s supporters are known to dominate the local police and can mobilise gunmen or mass protests at short notice, as they did regularly during an uprising last year that swept across southern Iraq.
British officials are convinced that Iran is implicated in the upsurge in violence and suspect it may be connected to Britain’s hardening position against Tehran’s nuclear programme. Britain has been working closely with Iran over the past two years to reach a compromise. But with the victory last month of the hawkish President Ahmadinejad, Iran has hardened its position.
Britain is now actively lobbying to have Tehran referred to the UN Security Council, where it could face sanctions.
(Excerpt) Read more at iranfocus.com ...
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Seems we have lost our edge in prudence.
We have known from the beginning that Iran was sending arms and people into Iraq, this is not new news.
Could you enlarge your point a little? How does mucking around in the French revolution relate to Basra?
We went to war in Iraq to disarm and dethrone Saddam Hussein - We did that. Now we have gotten embroiled in a low level one sided civil war. We should back out of there and if any further action is needed - let it be by raining hell from the sky.
Oh my gosh, refer them to the UN. I'll bet Iran is shaking in their boots right now...not!@
I don't know about the one-sided part but the low level part is certainly true.
If we should pull out now, Iraq will definitely degenerate and fall into the hands of people worse than Saddam. Are you comfortable with that?
It seems that the recent news (billroggio, not the MSM)from Iraq is showing good progress in establishing a stable government in Iraq with control increasing in all of the reallytroubled areas.
Basra and Iran are a very real problem, but I am not convinced that cutting and running are going to make things better.
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