Islamist vigilantes attack students in Basra

Students gathered for a coeducational picnic were attacked by rifle wielding thugs, followers of Moqtada al-Sadr, the radical Shia cleric.

“They began shooting in the air and people screamed. Then, with one order, they began beating us with their sticks and rifle butts.” Two students were said to have been killed.

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The picnic had run foul of the Islamist powers that increasingly hold sway in the fly-blown southern city, where religious militias rule the streets, forcing women to don the veil and closing down shops that sell alcohol or music.

In the election in January, the battle between secular and religious forces in Basra came down to the ballot box. The main Shia alliance triumphed with 70 per cent of the province’s vote, most of the rest going to a secular rival.

The attack was bad enough, but the response from the powers that be was even worse.

When the students begged British soldiers to intervene, they were told that they could only get involved at the request of Iraqi authorities. Basra's chief of police "pleaded helplessness."

When the students tried to organise demonstrations, they were broken up by the Mehdi Army. Later the university was surrounded by militiamen, who distributed leaflets threatening to mortar the campus if they did not call off the protests.

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The students have begun an indefinite strike, but fear that there is little that they can do to stop the march of violent fundamentalism. Saleh, 21, another engineering student, said: “If this is how they deal with the most educated in Basra, how would they deal with ordinary people? The soul of our city is at stake.”

Via LGF.