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Basra: Iraqi police say scores of Iranian-supported Shiite militias are active in Basra and they are blaming British troops for their growing role in the southern part of the country.
According to Major General Abdul Jalil Khalaf, police commander of Basra who was placed under suspension on Monday, there are 43 Shiite armed militias backed by Iran in the city, which is called "Iraq's lung" because most of Iraq's oil is exported from Umm Qasr port on the Arabian Gulf.
"Two sides bear responsibility for the militias' growing influence, and these are the British forces who have neglected the militias' activities; and Iran which has funded and supplied weapons to militias; Therefore, the British and Iranians are to blame for the deteriorating security situation in Basra," Sa'ad Taher, an officer in the Iraqi army, said to Gulf News.
One of the most powerful militias in the Shiite city of Basra, which is the second largest city in Iraq after Baghdad, is the Mahdi Army militia - the armed wing of the Sadr trend led by Moqtada Al Sadr.
The total number of Mahdi Army militiamen is estimated between forty to sixty thousand armed men and it also has medium and heavy weapons as guns, anti-tank missiles and aircraft.
Hashim Abdul Hussain, a political researcher in Basra, told Gulf News: "The British [troops] realised that confronting the Iran-backed militias will cost the British forces heavy casualties and lead to a declaration of war against British forces. I think the British betrayed Americans and held an undeclared truce with Iranians and their militias."
Reports inside political circles in some southern Iraqi Shiite provinces say that Americans had prepared a plan to take over Basra if the British forces withdrew and if the Iraqi forces failed to control the situation and resolve the battle against the militias.
"Americans gave Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri Al Maliki, a brief period to control Basra and defeat the militias or the American forces would occupy the city," a high-ranking Iraqi officer in the Ministry of Defence, who did not want to disclose his name said.
"Al Maliki and the Shiite coalition led by Abdul Aziz Al Hakim told Americans that their presence in Basra is a serious development because they will face Iranians directly ... the Iraqi government does not want a confrontation between the two sides," he said.
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