By Mariam Karouny
Reuters, 30 May 2006
BAGHDAD - Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki will fly to Iraq's second city Basra on Wednesday to end faction fighting among fellow Shi'ites and said he is ready to use force against "gangs" holding oil exports and other trade to ransom.
"We must restore security in Basra and if anyone defies peaceful solutions then force will be the solution," he told Reuters in an interview on Tuesday.
"There's no way we can leave Basra, the gateway to Iraq, our imports and exports, at the mercy of criminal, terrorist gangs. We will use force against these gangs."
Security has deteriorated sharply in the southern city over the past year as rival factions from the Shi'ite Muslim majority tussle for a share of the power handed to Shi'ites by the U.S. overthrow of Saddam Hussein's Sunni-dominated administration.
Basra, whose oil accounts for virtually all of Iraq's state revenues, is a major prize for all parties.
Speaking three days after a small Shi'ite faction warned it could halt oil exports from Basra to win concessions in Baghdad, Maliki said: "I will go tomorrow with a delegation from the government and from the parliament."
"We will spare nothing to find a solution," he added, saying he would stay in the city beyond Wednesday if needed.
Maliki said he was unhappy with some of the policies of British forces who patrol Basra province, where various factions of his dominant Shi'ite Islamist Alliance bloc are competing for power and influence.
He said a further complication was foreign "infiltrators" coming across the border from Shi'ite Iran -- though he declined to say he believed these incomers were themselves Iranian.
"What is happening in Basra has many dimensions," said Maliki, whose Dawa party is part of the Alliance coalition.
THREAT TO EXPORTS
The main Alliance factions involved in Basra's power struggles are the armed Badr organisation, the governor's Fadhila party and the movement of cleric and militia leader Moqtada al-Sadr.
A source close to Fadhila warned last week it could halt oil exports.
Noting an open conflict between the governor and the police chief against a backdrop of daily killings and widespread accusations of corruption and organised crime, he said: "We cannot blame whatever is happening on terrorists.
"There is a tribal dimension and also there are the armed organised criminal gangs who are kidnapping and killing people, and these are the most dangerous element in the crisis.
"There are infiltrators who mean to complicate the situation in Basra because Basra is Iraq's oil artery," he added.
"Also there is some behaviour from the British," he said without specifying which policies he was complaining about.
"We will work on reconciling tribes and religious figures and political parties, and also increase the security presence to stop the criminals," he said.
Maliki said he would not spare any option to end the Basra crisis.
"We have to go to find solutions ... We have a crisis but it is not an insoluble crisis and, God willing, our efforts will be enough to find solutions acceptable to all sides involved."
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Citation: Mariam Karouny. "Iraq PM ready to use force on Basra oil "gangs"," Reuters, 30 May 2006.
Original URL: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L30182670.htm
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