Muhammad Idrees Ahmad

Al Jazeera’s coverage.

Pepe Escobar on the Battle of Basra.

‘As the Iraqi army’s assault on Shia militias in the city falters, the government’s strategy is looking to be a dangerous gamble’, writes Patrick Cockburn. Ever since the establishment ‘Left’ helped neocons banish Ron Paul from the presidential race, Iraq has barely featured in the debates.

The US is facing a new crisis in Iraq that may determine the outcome of the presidential election, as American military forces are drawn into supporting the Iraqi government’s faltering attempt to crush the main Shia militia.A US warplane strafed a house in Basra killing eight civilians, including two women and a child, Iraqi police said yesterday. The house was in the city’s Hananiyah district, which is a stronghold of the Mehdi Army militia of the Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

British forces became directly involved in the battle yesterday after artillery in the British headquarters at Basra airport fired on a mortar crew in the city. Previously, the British Army had limited itself to providing logistical and air support for the assault on the militia.

Last night, an indefinite round-the-clock curfew was imposed by Baghdad’s military command in response to the latest skirmishes. “To defeat the terrorist groups, the outlaws and the criminal gangs, and to preserve the souls of our citizens, we extended the curfew in Baghdad indefinitely for people, cars and motorcycles,” said a statement from the Iraqi security forces.

Five days after the start of the offensive ordered by the Iraqi prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, US military intelligence says that the Iraqi army holds less than a quarter of Basra, which has a population of two million. In east Baghdad, meanwhile, five hospitals have received 133 bodies and 647 wounded since the start of the fighting.

Mr Maliki’s confident prediction that he would crush the Mehdi Army is turning out to be a dangerous gamble that is fast eroding his authority. It is damaging to President Bush, who had claimed the US “surge” had brought about a turning point in America’s five-year-old war to pacify Iraq. Mr Bush had praised the offensive as showing that the Iraqi security forces, trained and supported by the US, could at last stand and fight on their own. So far, the gun battles in Baghdad and the Shia south of Iraq are providing evidence that exactly the opposite is true.

About 40 policemen handed over their weapons to the Mehdi Army in Sadr City. “We can’t fight our brothers in the Iraqi Mehdi Army,” one said. In another incident, a dozen police were shown on television handing over their guns and ammunition to Sheikh Salman al-Feraiji, Mr Sadr’s chief representative in Sadr City.

The Iraqi interior minister, Jawad al-Bolani, yesterday urged police commandos to show “strength and courage” in the fight against Shia militiamen in Basra, but referred to “problems”, which he said would be addressed after the battle.

US aircraft were also active in Baghdad but the US military only admitted to an air attack in the Khadamiyah district, where 10 were killed. The US said they were militants, though the area is not a Mehdi stronghold.

Mr Sadr told al-Jazeera TV yesterday that Arab leaders meeting in Damascus should support the “resistance” to US occupation. The leader of the most powerful political movement in Iraq draws his support from the Shia poor, while his rival, the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC), is supported by Shia clerics, merchants and property owners. The Sadrists-SIIC rivalry is behind the timing of Mr Maliki’s Basra assault. Though he said it was aimed at all militias and illegal armed movements, the attack has only been against the Mehdi Army and not against the Fadhila party and the SIIC, which both control parts of the city. The SIIC is now the main support behind Mr Maliki.

The timing of this week’s attack may also be explained by the decision this month, at the prompting of US Vice-President Dick Cheney, on a visit to Baghdad, to hold provincial elections. The US aim was to allow the Sunnis, who boycotted the last polls in January 2005, to win control of their provinces. But elections also threatened the SIIC’s grip on councils in southern Iraq because the party has become increasingly unpopular and the Sadrists were expected to win at the polls.

So far Mr Sadr has not formally ended his ceasefire, declared in August last year and renewed in February. Ever since he fought the US marines in two battles in Najaf in 2004, he has been averse to direct military confrontation with the Americans or his Shia rivals when backed by the US. But as Mr Maliki’s military offensive falters, his commanders are increasingly looking to the US and Britain for support. If US and British forces engage in direct military action on a wide scale with the Sadrist militia, then Mr Sadr could call for a general uprising, which would engulf all of Shia Iraq in war. The Mehdi Army already controls half of Baghdad.

The situation holds marked dangers for the 4,100 British forces at Basra airport. Their numbers are large enough to be a target, but not enough to tip the balance in the battle for Basra. If they become embroiled in street fighting, they will reinforce the impression among Iraqis that Mr Maliki is a pawn of the occupying powers.

Mr Maliki has said there will be “no retreat” and has boxed himself into a corner by ruling out compromise. Critics of US policy will attack the official picture of progress in Iraq as a mirage. Mr Sadr and the Mehdi Army could emerge from the crisis stronger than before.

Patrick Cockburn‘s ‘Muqtada al-Sadr and the Fall of Iraq’ will be published by Faber & Faber on 3 April