Basra’s all-powerful Baath party leaders seem to have vanished. Their grand villas may have British tanks parked on the front lawn, but still locals are not convinced that they have seen the last of the old guard.

While America and London were preoccupied with the summit in al-Nasiriyah yesterday, in Basra they wish that the allies would devote more of their attention to tracking down the men who made their lives a misery for three decades.

Baath party buildings were on the priority list of targets to be bombed, but there are now serious doubts about allied claims to have wiped out 200 Baathist leaders in an air raid on one of their meetings during the first days of the war.

Locals dispute the number of casualties and their identity. They say that they saw the bodies in the rubble and did not recognise any of Basra’s leaders. Conspiracy theorists claim that the allies are protecting them until the dust settles.

What went on in Baghdad was always regarded with little interest in Iraq’s second city. In recent years there was little interference from the capital — only deliberate neglect.

As a consequence, people here were more concerned about the activities of their local Baath party leaders.

While most people in Iraq ask: “Where is Saddam?” In Basra they want to know what has become of the Sadoons — the tribe that ruled that their city like a family business. The leader was Abdul Baky al- Sadoon, a muscular Saddam lookalike who was last seen 48 hours before the US-led invasion.

The popular belief is that he is probably hiding on a modest farm owned by one of his many relatives somewhere in the deserts of southern Iraq.

There is some satisfaction at the thought of this pompous, self-indulgent man being cooped up in some scruffy mud-built house with no power or running water, but Basra’s residents would sleep easier if he was behind bars.

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