Big Noise Films - The Battle for Basra

The Battle for Basra

Basra is Iraq's economy – its Rumeila oil fields tap one of the largest pools of petroleum in the world, and without its revenues the central government in Baghdad would collapse. This wealth makes Basra the site of a battle for political control between the three largest Shiite parties in Iraq – al-Hakim’s SIIC, Moqtada al-Sadr’s ‘Sadrist Current’, and the Islamic Virtue Party, which controls the Basra governorate and is linked to the Oil Workers' Union. The Battle For Basra explores the power struggle underway in Basra, and what it reveals about the larger battle for control in the new, Shiite-dominated Iraq.

An investigation by Rick Rowley, Hiba Dawood and David Enders with the support of the Pulitzer Center on Crisis reporting.
This report originally aired on Al-Jazeera English.
Available on Dispatches Vol.3

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