Militias Wresting Control Across Iraq's North and South

In June, however, U.S. officials denied any role and called for an end to the "extra-judicial detentions." A State Department memo at the time warned that abductions in the contested northern city of Kirkuk had "greatly exacerbated tensions along purely ethnic lines" and threatened U.S. standing.

In both northern and southern Iraq, the parties and their militias defend their tactics as a way of ensuring security in an increasingly lawless atmosphere. In part, they say, their power reflects their success in January's national and local elections, in which the Kurdistan Democratic Party and its counterpart, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, and the Shiite-led Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq and other Islamic parties won overwhelmingly in their respective regions.

But critics charge that they are wresting control over security forces to claim de facto territory and authority, effectively partitioning Iraq even as representatives in Baghdad struggle to negotiate a permanent constitution. "We have a feeling that our Islamic brothers want power, regardless of the law and regardless of the state," said Rahi Muhajir, who leads the Communist Party in Nasiriyah, 130 miles north of Basra. "They want authority and they want to stay permanently."

''Their Own Justice'

In the streets of Basra, a dreary, dun-hued port of 1.5 million people on the banks of the Shatt al Arab, the local police force of 13,600 has become as much an instrument of fear as security. Mohammed Musabah, the governor of Basra, acknowledged that the police were infiltrated by religious parties, the most powerful of which is the Supreme Council. His police chief, Hassan Sawadi, went further. He told a British newspaper, the Guardian, that he had lost control over three-quarters of his police force and that militiamen inside its ranks were using their posts to assassinate opponents. Soon after, Musabah said, the Interior Ministry ordered Sawadi not to speak again publicly

Since May, political leaders estimate that as many as 65 assassinations have occurred in Basra. Among them were a lieutenant colonel in the Defense Ministry, a Baath Party-era police officer, a merchant with ties to Hussein's government, two university professors and a municipal official who had tried to combat corruption. An American journalist was also recently killed, but the circumstances are unclear.

Musabah, whose own Islamic party, Fadhila, is believed to have growing influence inside the police force, said he has imposed new orders to try to track police vehicles involved in killings: Vehicles must bear numbers in large digits on the side, and tinted glass was banned. He tried to disband the two most notorious groups -- police intelligence and internal affairs -- although lower-ranking officers said they still operate as shadow forces at the direction of the Badr Organization, the Supreme Council's military arm.

Many residents of Basra say power remains in the hands of those with guns. They say the political parties -- the Supreme Council and the Fadhila party in particular -- realize that exerting power over the police is the surest way to secure influence and battle their rivals.

"The parties exercise their power through the security forces to impose their political views," said Jamal Khazaal, the leader of the Sunni-led Iraqi Islamic Party in Basra, who carries a pistol and travels with an armed escort. "The police chief can no longer control his own force. It's no longer a secret."

Ammar Muther, a 30-year-old member of Iraq's Border Police, had brought his father 110 miles south from the city of Amarah to Basra in December. A senior Baathist and a missile engineer in the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war, his father, Muther Abadi, had already escaped what he believed was an assassination attempt by Basra police who traveled to Amarah in two pickup trucks. Muther thought his father would be more secure with him in his home in Basra.

On a cold day that month, Muther recalled, he was downtown when his cell phone rang. It was his brother-in-law, his words urgent and clipped. "Come immediately to the house," Muther recalled him saying.

When Muther arrived, his father was gone. Six uniformed policemen in black masks had entered his house, his family told him. They put a gun to his wife's head and locked her, his mother and the children in the bedroom. The father tried to run, but police caught him. He clawed at the door as they dragged him away.