Religious Extremists Killing Women in Basra, Iraq
Women in Basra have become the targets of a violent campaign by religious extremists, who leave more than 15 female bodies scattered around the city each month, police officers say. Maj. Gen. Abdel Jalil Khalaf, commander of Basra's police, said Thursday that self-styled enforcers of religious law threatened, beat and shot women who they thought weren't sufficiently Muslim. --Jay Price and Ali Omar Al-Basri
By Jay Price and Ali Omar Al-Basri
McClatchy Newspapers
Thursday 04 October 2007
Basra, Iraq - "This is a new type of terror that Basra is not familiar with," he said. "These gangs represent only themselves, and they are far outside religious, forgiving instructions of Islam."
Often, he said, the "crime" is no more than wearing Western clothes or not wearing a head scarf.
Before the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, Iraqi women had had rights enshrined in the country's constitution since 1959 that were among the broadest of any Arab or Islamic nation. However, while the new constitution says that women are equal under the law, critics have condemned a provision that no law can contradict the "established rulings" of Islam as weakening women's rights.
The vigilantes patrol the streets of Basra on motorbikes or in cars with dark-tinted windows and no license plates. They accost women who are not wearing the traditional robe and head scarf known as hijab. Religious extremists in the city also have been known to attack men for clothes or haircuts deemed too Western.
Like all of southern Iraq, Basra is populated mostly by Shiite Muslims, so sectarian violence is not a major problem, but security has deteriorated as Shiite militias fight each other for power. British troops in the area pulled out last month.
Developments
A U.S. soldier was killed Thursday by small-arms fire in Baghdad, military officials said.
The Shiite Muslim mayor of Iskandariyah, a city south of Baghdad, was killed Thursday along with four bodyguards when a roadside bomb tore into their convoy.
Iraq's self-governing Kurdish region finalized a handful of new oil deals, further straining relations with Baghdad, which wants to centralize control of the country's oil resources.