This Is a Far Better Place

The Leader of the Labour regime was in Basra to tell British troops that while they would not be home for Christmas as he had stated previously, it was possible they would be back by next March. He told forces, who have withdrawn to an encampment outside Basra airport, that the city and thus the entire province will be handed over to Iraqi government control in the next two weeks and, according to the Telegraph, 'hinted at an end to Britain's involvement in the country.'

Meanwhile, (reports Juan Cole on Informed Comment), Major General Jalil Khalaf, speaking in the city of Basra, said sectarian groups imposing a strict interpretation of Islam, dispatch patrols of motorbikes or unlicensed cars with tinted windows to accost women not wearing traditional dress and head scarves: the Major General added,

"The women of Basra are being horrifically murdered and then dumped in the garbage with notes saying they were killed for un-Islamic behavior ". Khalaf told Associated Press that as well men with Western clothes or haircuts are also being attacked in Basra.

Since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and the installation of a Shiite-dominated
government, armed men in some parts of the country have been forcing women to cover their heads or face punishment. In some areas of the heavily Shiite south, even Christian women have been forced to wear headscarves.

"Your makeup and your decision to forgo the headscarf will bring you death." say posters throughout the formerly British sector Basra region.

Khalaf said the bodies of women have been found in garbage dumps with bullet holes, decapitated or otherwise mutilated, with a sheet of paper nearby saying, "she was killed for adultery," or "she was killed for violating Islamic teachings." In September, he added, the headless bodies of a woman and her 6-year-old son were among those found. A total of 40 deaths were reported this year. But:

"We believe the number of murdered women is much higher, as cases go unreported by their families who fear reprisal from extremists,"

Gordon Brown, the British Prime Minister, ended his peroration to the British army with the declaration:

"We have managed now to get Iraq into a far better place " .

Today ( from Informed Comment)

Police found an anonymous body of a woman on Hamdan street south of Basra city. Police said that the woman was shot in different areas of her body. '