In a Land Without Order, Punishment Is Power

The sheik and Musawi lamented the chaos, each complaint growing in exasperation. Their anger was directed everywhere -- at Shiite militias whose men often wear police uniforms, at a national government beholden to Americans and sharing power with Sunni politicians "building car bombs in their houses," at their own people, who they maintained don't understand the word hesitation, and at Sunnis who, the sheik insisted with wide eyes, cannot sleep with their wives as long as Shiites are in power.

"You cannot rule people without a big stick," Musawi insisted. "No one cares anymore, because no one is punished."

Still gloomy, the sheik shrugged his shoulders. Optimistic?

"With all this killing in the streets?" he asked. "Every day is worse than the day before."

Fragmented Authority

The posters on the sheik's wall represent the forces in Basra and his region -- the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the splintered Dawa party and the Mahdi Army of Moqtada al-Sadr, whose followers regularly attack British troops patrolling Basra. As it has for years now, often still functioning as a clandestine force, the Supreme Council focuses on the instruments of government power -- the police, provincial council and intelligence service in Basra. Sadr and his unruly force have the streets.

But even the Sadrists are divided. The Mahdi Army is perhaps the most powerful in places like Basra and Nasiriyah. But it contends with breakaway factions -- Fadhila, whose representative serves as Basra's governor; followers loyal to Mahmoud Hassani; and another group known as the Movement of Rebels of the Intifada. They sometimes cooperate, more often not.

In all, residents estimate there are about 19 Islamic parties in the region around Basra, each with armed followers.

"Each head of the militia is his own dictator. This is the reality," said Sayyid Abdel-Aal al-Musawi, a 46-year-old cleric whose father heads an influential but apolitical Shiite sect known as the Shaikhiya. "They don't adhere to any limits."

In Basra, anywhere from a few to two dozen people are killed on most days -- clerics, former Baathists, Sunni Muslims, rivals and many for reasons no one quite understands. The same goes for Yusufan. The sheik listed those killed: an official with the Ministry of Health who was kidnapped and whose body was found in a Sadrist stronghold; a fruit vendor; a cattle salesman suspected of being a Baathist. A little while ago, a lawyer was shot in the leg from a passing car. The gunmen got out and then shot him in the head.

"People are cheap," the sheik said. "After they kill, they walk with their weapons back to the police station."

"No one will ask anything," he added.

There is no real government in Yusufan, bisected by a canal overgrown with weeds and overrun with trash.