A murder every hour on lawless streets of Basra

One person is being assassinated in Basra every hour as order in Iraq's second city disintegrates, according to an Iraqi Defence Ministry official.

The number of killings is now at a level close to that of Baghdad and marks the failure of the British Army's 3-year-old attempt to quell violence in Basra.

Police no longer dare go where a murder has taken place because they are frightened of being attacked. Basra Governor Mohammed al-Waili is trying to sack the city police chief, claiming that the police have not carried out a single investigation into hundreds of recent assassinations.

The collapse of Government authority is increasing at every level as political leaders in Baghdad fail to form a Cabinet after parliamentary elections on December 15.

Insurgent attacks on American and British troops are also proving more lethal with 44 US soldiers and seven British killed so far this month.

Daily losses are exceeding anything seen for more than a year.

Majid al-Sari, an adviser to the Iraqi Ministry of Defence, describing the situation in Basra to the daily al-Zaman, said that an average of one person was being assassinated every hour.

Militiamen and tribesmen are often the only real authority. When Sheikh Hassan Jarih al-Karamishi was killed by men dressed in police uniforms at the weekend, his heavily armed tribesmen took to the streets. Sari said they stormed one police station in south Basra, killing 11 police, and burned down two other buildings that were headquarters for a political party.

Tribes who once lived in the marshlands outside Basra before they were drained by Saddam Hussein in the 1990s are particularly feared in the city.

They are often linked to criminal gangs and are engaged in constant feuds with other tribes. Militias owe allegiance to Shia religious parties though they are also suspected of receiving funds from Kuwaiti and Iranian intelligence.

The number of Iraqis killed as a result of violence receives some international attention but many others, particularly young children, die because they are malnourished and vulnerable to disease.

A quarter of all Iraqi children suffer from chronic malnutrition, according to an Iraqi Government survey of more than 20,000 households backed by Unicef's Iraq Support Centre.

The number of children between six months and five years suffering from acute malnourishment, damaging mental as well as physical development, rose from 4 per cent in 2002, the last year of Saddam Hussein's rule, to 9 per cent in 2005, said David Singh, a Unicef spokesman.

In Baghdad, as wrangles over forming a Government continue, the city has slipped into civil war waged by sectarian assassins and death squads.

The Prime Minister-designate Nuri al-Maliki is supposed to announce a Cabinet by May 22 though there is no agreement on the most important posts such as the Interior and Defence Ministries.

- INDEPENDENT