By Luke Baker
BAGHDAD, Sept 20 (Reuters) - Basra was supposed to be a success story, a place where British troops could bring peace and stability after decades of Saddam Hussein's rule.
But in recent months, and particularly the last three weeks, order has been steadily unravelling in the mainly Shi'ite city, culminating in Monday's violence, when British troops had to mount a raid to free two of their soldiers held by militiamen.
It was some of the worst violence British troops have faced since they helped lead the invasion of Iraq 2-1/2 years ago, and threatens to raise tension sharply between the local population and Britain's 8,500-strong military force.
A major port with a population of more than 1 million, Basra was expected to be fairly easy to control after the war, despite its size, thanks to the city's virulent opposition to Saddam Hussein and its desire for a rapid, British-led revival.
And in many respects, things at first went to plan. While there were occasional outbreaks of violence, Basra has seen only a fraction of the chaos that has affected much of the central, Sunni Arab regions of the country, where U.S. troops operate.
That gave British commanders hope they could gradually pull back to base and hand more responsibility over to Iraqi forces, something they did after elections in January, when Shi'ites took power in Baghdad and southern cities like Basra.
At the same time, however, tensions were rising among rival Shi'ite factions vying for control of local security forces and Basra's city council, leading to turf wars and armed clashes between militias loyal to competing political movements.
The dominant political group, the pro-Iranian Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, faced off against those loyal to Moqtada al-Sadr, a young, nationalist Shi'ite cleric with a committed following of young, disaffected men.
Other, more traditional Shi'ite movements tried to hold the middle ground, the large secular population tried to stay out of trouble, and British troops tried to keep a lid on it all. The pot boiled over this month.
GROWING TENSION
In the first two weeks of September, three British troops were killed by roadside bombs in Basra. British forces believed members of Sadr's militia were behind the attacks.
On Sept. 18, British troops arrested a cleric close to Sadr and two other men on suspicion of responsibility. The British commander acknowledged the arrests could be seen as a move against Sadr's movement, but insisted that wasn't the case.
"I am well aware that the people we have arrested are prominent individuals in Basra," Brigadier John Lorimer said. "But let me make it absolutely clear: we have acted against them as individuals, not as members of any particular organisation."
That doesn't appear to have placated Sadr's movement. Hundreds of his supporters, many of them brandishing weapons, protested against the arrests in the streets of Basra on Sunday.
Then on Monday, two British soldiers, undercover in civilian clothes, were spotted at a police checkpoint. Fighting broke out, in which Iraqi authorities say two people were killed, and the British pair ended up being taken into custody.
When British armoured vehicles went to try and free them, they were stoned by enraged Sadr supporters. One British soldier was photographed leaping from his hatch as flames engulfed him.
The debacle led British forces to mount Monday night's raid. But when they got to the jail, and broke down a wall, they found the two men were not in police custody, but had been handed over to one of Basra's militia groups. They were eventually freed.
The episode may be over, but along with other recent events, it may mark a turning point, with militias flexing their power.
In the past two months, two journalists have been kidnapped and killed by masked men who said they were from the Iraqi authorities but may have been loyal to militias. One, American Steven Vincent, wrote a piece for the New York Times about the rise of militias and British troops' failure to quell them.
The other journalist, an Iraqi, also worked mostly for the New York Times and had also researched articles on militias.
"The larger context is the very poor situation in Basra, where the British are not really in control of things," Toby Dodge, an Iraq analyst at Queen Mary College, University of London, said in reaction to Monday's military operation.
"A myth had been perpetrated that the Brits are great and everything's okay in Basra. But the softly-softly approach was not nation-building."
(Additional reporting by Alistair Lyon in London)
