THE terror felt by ordinary Basrawis trapped by the attacks and counterattacks of recent days followed years of growing fear as Shi’ite militias tightened their grip on the city.

I was in Basra three months ago when British commanders officially handed over control to Iraqi security forces even though everyone knew the strength of the militias.

Engineers, doctors and scientists were being dragged from their homes and murdered as extremists targeted the educated.

Forty-eight women had been slaughtered in six months and not one of their cases had been solved. They were killed because some militia member thought they did not dress modestly enough, or did not like them leaving their homes to go to work, or had heard a gossipy neighbour saying that they had a boyfriend. They were dumped like rubbish.

The reports of their deaths all made horrible reading, but I remember the police file of one in particular. From the photograph of her lying in the morgue, it was clear that her nose had been crushed. Trails of blood ran from her closed right eye like streams of tears. She was identified as, “female, unknown identity, found in al-Mishraq al-Jaid neighbourhood, behind the car dealer’s”.

There was no way to move around Basra openly as a westerner, but I was lucky. I had good Iraqi friends who carried guns and protected me. They advised me not to stay in a hotel, so I slept on the floor of an office. The militias monitored everything. Anyone checking into a hotel with a foreign passport could be a target.

That proved to be good counsel. A British journalist was kidnapped last month from Qasr al-Sultan, a supposedly secure hotel, days after he arrived. He has not been seen since.

When my computer broke down, my friends advised me that it was too dangerous to go to an internet cafe around the corner. Black-shirted members of the Mahdi Army were manning checkpoints and peering into every car.

There were light moments during my brief stay, but it was largely about survival. I remember Ali, 6ft 3in, in his Italian suit and smart shoes, showing me how to wear an abbaya, the all-enveloping traditional black robe, like a Basrawi by putting it over his head and demonstrating to the best of his ability how Iraqi women walked.

I would wear that abbaya every day in Basra, scuttling ignominiously from car to door, which would have been unheard of in earlier days when the southern city was as liberal and louche as countless other ports. Kuwaitis would drive across the border to drink in Basra at weekends, and New Year’s Eve was celebrated by Filipinas singing pop songs badly and people consuming too many bottles of Johnnie Walker Black Label whisky.

Those days are long gone. Even last December, Major General Jalil Khalaf seemed to be the only man trying to stand up to the militias. What he has told me makes me certain that the government of Nouri al-Maliki, the prime minister, knew exactly what was going on long before he sent in the troops last week.

Khalaf had only recently been appointed and had spent his first few months trying to work out what was going on in Basra. His efforts had given him black bags under his eyes.

It was worse than he could have imagined, he said, sitting behind his walnut desk and describing a world in which the police, three Shi’ite political parties and their militias were at odds with one another. The militias were better armed and were winning. They had money and power.

Khalaf had sent a lengthy report to the government in Baghdad describing the situation and begging for help. Nothing was done.

He had also survived seven attempts to kill him and wryly joked he would make the Guinness book of world records for assassination attempts. Last week he survived another, although he was hit by shrapnel and three of his bodyguards were killed.

The would-be assassins may have come from within his own force, as with the earlier attempts on his life. Khalaf had started trying to clear out the thousands of police on his books who were actually working for one militia or another. Police have been seen tearing off their shirts during the current clashes and defecting to the militia ranks.

When we met, Khalaf was so concerned for my safety that he gave me four lorries full of guards to escort me back to my office floor for the night, and then handed me his personal Koran just in case. Last week I thought I had better return it to him.

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