For people of Basra, fear has a name: 'the Duck' / A onetime oasis of relative calm now on brink of collapse

2006-10-19 04:00:00 PDT Basra, Iraq -- On the streets of Basra, in southern Iraq, one thing nobody wants to see is "the Duck."

That's the nickname for a slightly battered, cream colored Toyota Crown, a car model known as Batta, Arabic for duck. It has become the stuff of grim local legend, a murderer on wheels, whose victims include Sunni and Shiite, rich and poor alike.

Little is known about the car or its drivers. Some say it is a Shiite gang carrying out an ethnic-cleansing campaign against the minority Sunnis, others that it is al Qaeda attempting to provoke a civil war in the oil-rich south. Wilder accusations point to British special forces or the city governor. Skeptics say the Duck is a largely mythical creature.

Whatever the truth, the fearful obsession is symptomatic of a city on the brink of collapse. Once regarded as an oasis of comparative calm and a model of how the U.S.-led occupation could work, Iraq's second city is a place where death squads now roam free.

A local resident who, like others interviewed for this story insisted on anonymity, described one such execution he said he saw in broad daylight this summer.

"There was a lot of traffic on the Baghdad road, and the Duck just came up alongside a car in front. A man got out -- he had a dark shirt and heavy black beard -- and walked toward the other car.

"He pulled two pistols out of his belt and stood there calmly shooting into it at point blank range. There was nothing left of the person inside. Then he walked back to the car and drove off."

The killing happened just yards away from a police checkpoint -- which happened to be unmanned that day.

Another infamous assault implicating the Duck involved a drive-by shooting from a Toyota Crown that killed a Sunni shopkeeper. As the slain man's family and neighbors -- a mix of Sunni, Shiite and Christian -- waited outside the hospital to collect the body, the Toyota reappeared together with a truck, from which a heavy machine gun opened fire, killing more than two dozen people.

"Everyone is afraid of the Duck, everyone in Basra lives in fear of the death squads because we know we could all be targets," a former Shiite resident who fled to Amman, Jordan, said. Because his family remains in Iraq, he spoke on condition of anonymity, afraid of recriminations.

Basra is an increasingly divided and dangerous city, caught in a power struggle between radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army and the Fadhila movement, a Shiite organization formed in 2003 that now has an armed wing, has won local elections and holds the governorship. Criminal gangs, widespread corruption and neighbor fearing neighbor add to the volatile mix.

Recriminations reached a high point last month when a group of local tribal leaders told Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki that death squads were being supported by the municipal authorities. British military sources in Basra said there was "no evidence" to support the claims.

But British Army spokesman Maj. Charles Burbridge confirmed that death squads -- including police officers -- are roaming the city. "It's certainly not an isolated incident, and it's not just one vehicle involved, there are several," he said in a telephone interview.

Burbridge blames renegade groups that have splintered from the main political and militia factions and infiltrated Iraqi security services. "The police have been infected by these same rogue elements, and from time to time the murder vehicle will be a police car," he said.

While he did not know specifically about the Duck, he was aware that killers roaming around the city in a Toyota Crown were notorious among local Iraqis.

In an attempt to regain control of the police, British forces last month launched "Operation Sinbad," designed to purge police ranks of militia members. "We're aiming to rehabilitate the police force and make it more able and willing to implement the rule of law," Burbridge said. "At the same time, we're conducting strike operations at terrorist attacks."

What effect that will have remains to be seen, but there is little hope among ordinary Iraqis that anything will change in the near future.

Baquer Shaheen, an unemployed 40-year-old, lost a brother to a death squad. The brother had been working at Umm Qasr, Iraq's only deepwater port.

"My brother came under a lot of pressure because he refused to get involved in corruption," Shaheen said. "One day, someone left a note at his door threatening to kill him unless he left his job. He went to work anyway and on the way home, his car was followed and attacked. Doctors said they found 37 bullets in his corpse."

Port workers at Abu Flose, a major oil transfer site, claim that millions of dollars raised from smuggling are financing political groups and private armies.

"You can only do business here if you go through certain groups, and you only get a job if you're an active supporter," one port employee said, on condition of anonymity. "It's like the Mafia, but if anyone speaks out, they're finished."

Such criminal activity, combined with widespread unemployment, has left increasing numbers of people destitute in Basra, heightening the sense of despair and further strengthening the militias' hold, observers say.

"The economic situation is so bad it's embarrassing for us," said Alaa Sabah, a local fisherman. "There is little honorable work, which means people get pushed into dishonorable things. Many young men join the Islamic parties' armies because it's the only thing they can do to get some money."