Police battle militia in Shi'ite-on-Shi'ite violence in provinical capital Samawah

Iraqi security forces on parade in Samawh, the capital of Muthanna province, as security responsibility was handed over in July

BAGHDAD — Shiite militia fighters clashed with police Sunday in Samawah, a provincial capital in southern Iraq, transforming it into a lawless battleground and exposing rifts that increasingly divide Iraq's Shiite Muslim majority.

Nine people, including four police officers, have died in the violence gripping parts of Samawah since Friday, police said. On Sunday, police backed by some Shiite tribal leaders called in Iraqi soldiers from nearby Diwaniya to help battle the militia. The security forces closed entrances to the city, which is about 145 miles southeast of Baghdad, imposed a curfew and shut the schools as they traded fire with militiamen.

Much of the death and destruction in Iraq this year has involved fighting between Shiites and the Sunni Muslim minority, which dominated the country under former President Saddam Hussein. But the violence in Samawah underscores the difficulty that Prime Minister Nouri Maliki and other Shiite leaders have had in maintaining order among members of their sect in a country where people's loyalties are divided among political parties, religious groupings and tribes.

Conflicts within Shiite communities have troubled Baghdad and other parts of Iraq in recent weeks, but the violence has been particularly notable in Samawah, capital of the first province handed over by U.S.-led forces to Iraqi control.

At a news conference Sunday, Iraq's interior minister, Jawad Bolani, a Shiite, said police were restoring order in Samawah. "People who try to create problems can appear in any city in the world," he said. "The important thing is that [security forces] are there to stop them."

Samawah police say they are battling a militia associated with the Al Mahdi army of Shiite cleric Muqtada Sadr, but Sadr associates said Sunday that the militia involved in the fighting is an offshoot led by a local Shiite cleric feuding with rival tribes.

Read the rest at the LA Times