Seen as the most violent days of war in Iraq, recent days have witnessed unprecedented violence in many Iraqi cities, particularly Baghdad and Basra, but this violence comes in many guises and objectives, while allegations are spreading about the return of relative calm to Iraq.
Violence may not be a new aspect since the American invasion of Iraq, but this time it is propagated over large areas including an increasing dose of internal fighting, and regardless of the many various causes, the real causes of domestic violence are related to the occupation alone that worked on fuelling sectarianism, division and discrimination among the people of the same country.
Violence between some internal Iraqi warring factions did not hide resistance violence; The Green Zone where embassies and government offices are entrenched has been exposed to shelling on a daily basis for more than a week now. The worst of that violence was what took place last Tuesday, as missile shells fell heavily on the said fortified zone, including four Catyusha missiles, one of which rocked the building of the special regiment providing special protection for Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, while the other three landed near the headquarters of American Black Water Company for private security.
Also on Tuesday, heavy fighting broke out between the followers of Shiite cleric Muqtada Al-Sadr and those of Badr Organization overseen by the Supreme Council headed by the Iraqi Islamic Shiite cleric Abdel-Aziz al-Hakim, in several areas of Baghdad, particularly Sadr City district, which is inhabited by about two million people, and considered as the main stronghold of Al-Sadr.
If this is the case in Baghdad, Basra is also living under a state of violence, after the government decided to "liberate" it, after Iraqi Interior Minister Jawad Alboulani suffered an assassination attempt when his convoy was ambushed by an armed attack near the bridge on the Shatt al-Arab in the city of Basra.
What is happening in Basra is the result of government policies, whose main members have sown their armed militias in that city to control its oil resources, but such control scheme turned into competition that led to violence and, therefore, it is not easy to contain the city and return it to government control and its security forces, that have lost control over it until further notice.
Iraqis experiencing the situation first hand in the city of Basra in particular argue that the turmoil and chaos permeating the city of Basra in southern Iraq now paint the main features of the future of the entire country in light of the continued occupation, which increases the incidence of killing, kidnapping and drives Shiite militias and gangs to warfare towards an attempt to impose their respective influence on the cities.
Diagnosis shows this disorder is caused by the existence of "strong political forces warring among themselves and competitive interests to benefit from the riches of Iraq, in addition to widespread corruption in the government and local administrations, and the economic stagnation and disability affecting the security services."
What happens in the city is causing concern not only to the government, but to the Americans who called the British to return to the city, while the British refused, announcing that their presence is unnecessary, given that "the Prime Minister is personally supervising the operations of the security forces aiming at restoring law to the city from one military base inside Iraq".
The government has already tried to implement a plan aiming at engaging hundreds of Shiite militia elements into the security forces in the Basra governorate, but this attempt did not contribute to the improvement of the security situation because these elements' loyalty remained in full to political blocs they originally belong to.
On the ground, "there are three large militia currently engaged in very bloody battles in southern Iraq." Such militias belong to parties taking part in power, who have worked on arming and supporting them; so, how could the owners fight their own militias?

Zakaria Shaheen is a freelance contributor to The Daily Star.