“There are some parties in this area who are trying to destabilize the provincial security situation,” says Ghanem Hamid al-Mayahi, the deputy head of the Basra provincial security committee. “They want to put pressure on the local government and to send a message that Basra is not a stable city and that the government is not in control. And they are using these stun grenades to achieve this.”
Al-Mayahi refused to speculate as to who these troublemakers might be, saying that if he did, then he would be the next to become a victim of either a stun or a real grenade.
Meanwhile a local judge, whose son’s house was attacked by stun grenades, recently said that the perpetrators are actually associated with Basra’s ruling parties.
“All of this is motivated by various conflicts of interest,” argues military analyst al-Sari. “And if anyone is arrested there are all kinds of compromises made. Different influential individuals exert pressure, there’s often a lack of solid evidence and there is little security for those arresting the perpetrators and those forces don’t have good discipline with it comes to investigation and confidentiality either,” he notes.
A local activist, Sarhan Ismail, says the stun grenade attacks worry him as they remind him of the very violent years in Iraq between 2007 and 2009. He thinks the problem is the armed gangs in Basra, some of whom are part of the Shiite Muslim militias that control parts of the province.
“All of this carries a dangerous message,” he told NIQASH, “about the return of violence and crime to Basra.”
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