Handover in Basra as killings go on

Today the British army formally transfers command in the province to the Iraqis, but the toll of factional warfare is still growing

Peter Beaumont, The Observer
After four years, eight months and 11 days, after the deaths of unknown thousands of Iraqis, after 174 British fallen, and billions expended on reconstruction and the cost of a military mission, today the British mission in Iraq takes a large step towards being wound up (...) The retreats and drawdowns of the past few months have been hailed by senior British officers as a symbol of their success in establishing a more secure Basra for Iraqi security forces to take over - a line being bought by almost no Iraqis in the province. Instead the city and province that the British occupied when paratroopers and marines marched into the city centre of Basra on 6 April, 2003, have traced a slow, bloody and fractious decline. The struggles between the different political factions within the city for control of hospital wards and university campuses, for the police and for local government, led to kidnapping, intimidation and assassination, and turned at the end into Shia-on-Shia factional warfare in which ordinary Iraqis were caught in the middle. Yesterday British officers stuck to their line. Major Mike Shearer said attacks had dropped dramatically since September as a result of the move. Attacks on British troops, he largely meant. No one denies that the city and the province that the British are handing over is plagued by violence between militias and criminal gangs. Or that women are murdered with impunity for not wearing the hijab...
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British Formally Hand Over Control Of Basra To Iraq Government