NYT : Iraqi and British Forces Battle Shiite Militias

Iraqi and British Forces Battle Shiite Militias

By PAUL VON ZIELBAUER | August 16, 2006

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Aug. 16 — Iraqi security forces and British troops fought Shiite militias and tribesmen in two major cities south of Baghdad on Wednesday in sustained battles that left two policemen and a dozen militiamen dead and underscored the tenuous grip the Iraqi government maintains even in regions not under the sway of Sunni Arab insurgents.

Also Wednesday, as American and Iraqi Army soldiers continued a security sweep through hostile neighborhoods in western Baghdad, bombings in other parts of the city killed 21 people and wounded 59 others.

Violent eruptions in Karbala, a Shiite holy city about 60 miles southwest of Baghdad, and Basra, Iraq’s second-largest city, demonstrated the destabilizing power of internecine conflicts that have little to do with the anti-American insurgency or sectarian killings.

In Basra, a gun battle erupted between Iraqi Army troops and members of the dominant local tribe, the Bani Asad, apparently angered by the killing on Tuesday of a tribal leader, Faisal Raji Al-Asadi, government officials in Basra said.

In a battle that lasted the better part of an hour, tribesmen clad in black clothing fired fusillades of bullets and grenades at the provincial government building, local police and government officials said, and eventually occupied the parts of the government complex.

“The building was in the hands of Bani Asad tribe,” an Iraqi government official said in a telephone interview from Basra, adding that the tribe believed the government was involved in Mr. Asadi’s killing.

“There is a state of chaos in the city,” the official added, speaking over the sustained crackle of gunfire in the background. Six people were killed in the fighting, he said, including two policemen and two tribesmen.

A prominent member of the tribe suggested in an interview with Al Jazeera on Wednesday afternoon that British forces, which have struggled to maintain control of Basra in the midst of warring Shiite militias, may have been responsible for the assassination.

“It is an outburst because of the assassination of the head of the Asadi tribe,” the tribal leader, who called himself Ayatollah al-Asadi, told Al Jazeera. Faisal Raji al-Asadi “contributed to throwing the British out,” he said. “Maybe they are taking revenge now.”

A spokesman for the British military in Basra denied any involvement in the killing and gave a much different and far less harrowing account of Wednesday’s hostilities.

Bani Asad tribesmen arrived at the government building armed but peaceful and demanded to see the governor, Muhammad al-Waili, a member of a different tribe, said the spokesman, Major Charlie Burbridge. “The protesters arrived and walked in the door,” he said. “It wasn’t an attack.”

Iraqi Army soldiers and local police succeeded in moving the armed men out of Mr. Waili’s offices, he said, though an Iraqi police officer appears to have been killed in a skirmish that followed. As the tribesman were leaving the area, they passed by a British military encampment and firing at it, provoking “quite an exchange of small-arms fire” that lasted 20 minutes, Major Burbridge said.

In Karbala, Wednesday’s violence took on a different hue, as security forces controlled by Shiites who are aligned with the main pro-Iranian bloc, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, fought militiamen loyal to a local Shiite cleric opposed to Iran’s influence in Iraq. The battle led security forces to cordon off the city to most nonresidents and impose a curfew to restore order.

Militiamen fighting on behalf of the cleric, Mahmud al-Hasani, converged from suburbs of Karbala and attacked a city police station and other government offices, according to statements from Mr. Hasani and Iraqi government officials.

Sheik Ali Badir al-Aboudi, one of Mr. Hasani aides, said in an interview that Wednesday’s attack was in retaliation for a car bomb that exploded near one of Mr. Hasani’s religious schools. “We know that Iranian intelligence helped them to do this attack,” Mr. Aboudi said, “and now they are sending in troops to kill and arrest everyone they can.”

Ten militia fighters were killed and 281 were arrested, according to a statement from Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki.

Anthony H. Cordesman, a Middle East analyst at the Center for Strategic & International Studies in Washington, suggested earlier this month that powers struggles among Shiite factions in Iraq could further destabilize the country.

“Intra-Shiite political struggles are becoming a source of violence,” he wrote in an Aug. 1 analysis. “It is unclear how bad this Shiite factionalism really is,” he added, though it “may surface as a major new problem.”

In Baghdad, three bombs in the central part of the city killed 21 people, officials said. Around 9 a.m., a roadside bomb in the Nahdad district in central Baghdad killed 8 people and wounded 17 others, an Interior Ministry official said. At 7 p.m., two car bombs killed 13 people and left 43 others wounded, the official said.

Qais Mizher and Ali Adeeb contributed reporting for this article.