1 November 2005

Atef Hassan (Extracted from "Basra explosion kills 20 among festive crowds", The Guardian, 1 November 2005)

"At least 20 people were killed in the southern Iraqi city of Basra last night after a car bomb went off in a market area packed with festive crowds visiting restaurants and enjoying the cool of one of the last evenings of the holy month of Ramadan."

[Ed Hitherto, the civil war in Iraq has been largely confined to attacks by Sunni extremists (and foreign terrorist invitees) on Shias in Baghdad, particularly those trying to enlist in the security forces. The latest incident in Basra now suggests that the alliance between the Basra-based Shias, who want an independent Shiastan in the south of Iraq, and the Moqtada-led Shias of Baghdad, who want to retain Iraq as a whole, is now breaking down. The Kurds have already achieved de facto independence, if not de jure yet. The Sunnis now dominate Baghdad and western areas, despite repeated attacks by American forces. All that remains now is for the Shias to sort themselves out. Little by little, a tripartite Iraq is coming about no matter how a plastic Constitution is re-jigged in the next few weeks in order to make the December election somehow relevant to Iraq's future.]