A Shia gunman in Basra. (click here)
Photograph: Esssam Al-Sudani/AFP/Getty images
...Earlier that morning, Sadr City had been eerily quiet. Cars moved slowly. Residents ferried food and water, preparing for the worst. Rubbish littered the charred streets. On one road, two green Stryker vehicles were parked.
Outside Um Falah's house, Mahdi fighters gathered, standing against the walls, peering down the street. Clashes were unfolding on an adjacent road. One group joined the fighting, but the others remained in place. Their job was to protect their end of the block. Um Falah continued her chores: 'I have got used to war, to all the battles in our lives.' It was not the first time her son had gone to fight US troops and in her heart, she said, she knew it would not be the last. 'I have sent my son on the right path,' she said.
In their living room, her husband and Abu Mustafa sat on red carpets set with colourful pillows. The room was prepared for battle, with plastic windowpanes and drawn curtains. On the wall hung tapestries depicting Imam Ali and other saints.
Thahabi, slim and gaunt-faced, said the Mahdi were not fighting only the Americans but also their Shia rivals - the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq and the ruling Dawa party. Thahabi believes the government launched an offensive in Basra last Monday to weaken the Sadrist forces ahead of provincial elections scheduled for this year. He thought Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who leads the Dawa party, was taking advantage of a ceasefire imposed by Sadr last August....
