This week Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki launched an Iraqi Security Forces offensive into Basra.

The violence that has killed dozens and injured hundreds since Tuesday is billed as Iraq's military against "criminals, terrorist forces and outlaws," in the words of Maliki. But political parties and their militias have gained a stronghold in Baghdad and Basra, from elected office to the security forces, police and those protecting the oil infrastructure. And the battle is looking more like two leading political parties against two disenfranchised parties, all Shiite Arab.

"It's an internal Shiite war for who is going to represent the Shiite community in Iraq," said Kenneth Katzman, a Middle East expert at the Congressional Research Service. The operation was planned a month ago, he said, and the target was the illegal activity like oil smuggling taking place under the control of the Fadhila Party and other armed groups.

The Mahdi Army of cleric Moqtada Sadr says it's the target of the Iraq Security Forces that have been infiltrated by the Badr Corps of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq. ISCI is a large and crucial member of the coalition government, along with Maliki's Dawa Party.

ISCI and Dawa have the overarching support of Washington, while Sadr has been alternately targeted and left alone and Fadhila ignored, like the rest of the south, until now.

Painting the Mahdi Army as the "bad guys �� can be a dangerous oversimplification," Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic & International Studies wrote Wednesday following a recent visit in Iraq. "No one should romanticize Maliki, Al Dawa, or the Hakim faction/ISCI. The current fighting is as much a power struggle for control of the south, and the Shiite parts of Baghdad and the rest of the country, as an effort to establish central government authority and legitimate rule."

Maliki and other top government officials are in Basra as the Iraqi Security Forces begin their offensive, though past army attempts to tamp violence there have failed. Armed forces without government authority have until Friday to turn in weapons. U.S. and British air support is reportedly assisting the ISF.

British forces, which ran Basra until December, have reduced their numbers and largely stay in the city airport. Their laissez-faire occupation strategy allowed the province to flourish in illegal smuggling of products, from autos to fuel. Religious fundamentalism grew to a point where women are openly targeted and killed for their choice of clothes. Political parties, gangs and militias intermixed, both in economics and bullets.

Basra province contains most of Iraq's oil reserves, 80 percent of oil production and the Persian Gulf port where 90 percent of exports head to market.

"In the short term, the current situation in Basra is not expected to affect oil output and exports," said Rochdi Younsi of the business risk firm Eurasia Group. "If violence persists, the situation has the potential of deteriorating rapidly into an intra-Shia conflict, which would have considerable consequence on stability in the oil-rich region of southern Iraq."

Control of the oil -- and the billions in monthly legal oil and fuel and crude black market sales -- is a fight years in the making. The three main political parties -- and their militias -- have battled for control since 2003, in between varied power- and illegal-revenue-sharing agreements, and failed efforts by the Iraqi army and government to stop graft and violence.

Ahead of the British handover, dozens of religious and political factions, including the big three, signed a peace accord.

The Fadhila Party won 2005 provincial elections, holds the governor's seat and controls the guards at Iraq's southernmost oil installations. The Sadr Movement has no major elected positions in Basra but has public support. The two represent Iraq's working class and poor, oppressed since before Saddam Hussein. At times they've formed alliances or held shootouts in the street. Both are targeted by Iraq's more dominant parties -- Dawa and especially ISCI, representing the well-off, elite Iraqis.

"I see it as a real class struggle in many ways," said the CRS' Katzman.

Fadhila and Sadr both won seats in the 2005 parliamentary elections and were part of the Dawa/ISCI-led governing coalition. But both have since quit the coalition and council of ministers: Fadhila after the oil minister loosely linked to the party was replaced by one loosely linked to ISCI; Sadr after dissatisfaction including lax rebuilding of a key Shiite mosque.

The ISCI orchestrated a vote of no confidence in Basra's provincial council, though the Fadhila governor remains in power.

Sadr has formally paused his militia, the Mahdi Army's activities, and a seven-month cease-fire -- credited by Washington for part of the recent reduction in violence in Iraq -- is now on the brink of total reversal. He has said his members can defend themselves but not take the offensive.

Sadr has accused ISCI of infiltrating the security forces with its Badr Corps militia and taking advantage of the cease-fire by targeting the Mahdi Army and Sadr supporters around the Shiite-controlled south. The same security forces are now part of the Basra offensive, raising questions as to its true aim, both for Sadr and Fadhila.

Provincial elections are to be held in October, and next month provinces can form their own region -- like the semiautonomous Kurds in the north, ISCI wants a super-Shiite region of nine southern provinces while Fadhila is pushing for Basra to become a region itself -- two reasons to consolidate local power.

The future of Basra is as easy to predict as motives of varying parties, all with survival and power as key end goals.

"Violence is probably going to deteriorate before it gets better," said David Hartwell, Middle East and North Africa editor for Jane's Country Risk, adding it depends how much support factions, especially Sadr, garner in the fight. "My guess is that it will burn bright but not particularly long."

(e-mail: [email protected])

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