Word: basra
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Residents in Basra and Amara say the government's crackdown in the region has, in many ways, yielded positive results. In Basra, families and young people throng the streets in the evening to socialize, no longer scared of the militias that previously dominated the city. The weapons trade also seems to have declined, with a sharp drop in attacks since 2007 as evidence. On the long, deserted road from Basra to Al-Faw, an Iraqi soldier points out several muddy port towns, consisting of low concrete houses. "It is difficult for them. Iraqi families have four or five children...
...says the smuggling problem has only increased since the start of the war in 2003, "because the American forces don't control the border." Agence France Presse reported last week that drug-trafficking arrests in Amara hit a new high last year, at 46. Most of the drugs, Basra military officials say, are opiates and cannabis, believed to originate in Afghanistan, that pass through Iran and Iraq for sale in the richer Gulf states...
Despite the regular military checkpoints along the road from Basra to Al-Faw, Iraqi military commanders in Basra say the stretch of border at Iraq's southeastern tip is still the most problematic, especially for the more benign, low-profit trade in illegal gasoline. At Al-Faw's small army base, nearly 30 butane gas canisters sit in the back of a truck, which the soldiers say was confiscated that morning. "They filled [the canisters] with diesel fuel for cars and they were taking it to fishermen to sell on the black market," says Al-Faw military commander Colonel Kareem...
...formal extent of Iran's role remains murky. Some Iraqi commanders are even wary of naming Iran as a party in the smuggling, though they will point to Basra and Maysan as problem areas. "Basra province is a big province and its borders are open, not just to Iran, but to Kuwait and Saudi Arabia," says one soldier. "All three countries are supplying the militias with weapons...
Other officers are more suggestive. Captain Saad, a military spokesman in Basra, says there was no cooperation between Iraqi and Iranian authorities with regard to border control. On the contrary, he says, "We received a letter one month ago from the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and they condemned an incident where Iraqi forces shot at some smugglers in the Shatt al-Arab...