Ceremonies were conducted in the heavily fortified international airport, the remaining British base in the region because it was too dangerous to carry out observances in the port city. However, to honour the occasion, Iraqi troops, police and armour staged a parade in the city in a bid to convince residents that Baghdad and the local government are in charge.

They are not. The security forces comprise recruits from the Badr Corps, the military wing of the Shia fundamentalist Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council (SIIC), as well as from the rival Mahdi Army, the militia of the movement headed by radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

These two competing groups constitute an Iraqi Shia Taliban tendency, which has imposed its will on the formerly liberal, cosmopolitan city of Basra. Women of all religious backgrounds do not dare leave their homes unless they have scrubbed off all make-up and have donned dresses prescribed by the Muslim fundamentalists. Shops selling alcohol have been burned, and men and women accused of immorality have been killed. At least 40 women have been murdered over the past three months for failing to adhere to the conservative dress code. Christians and other minority communities have been driven from Basra.

The contest between the SIIC and the Sadrists is far from resolved. The SIIC, which controls the central interior ministry in Baghdad, has managed to dominate the security forces in the south while the Sadrist militia has been re-grouping and re-training its fighters in preparation for the major conflict which is expected once US and British troops are out of the way.  SIIC, the Iranian founded and funded movement which has allied itself with the US, has the advantage for the present and has taken control of the Shia holy cities of Najaf and Kerbala which, as centres of pilgrimage are important sources of revenue.

But the Sadrists enjoy considerable influence amongst ordinary Shias in the south and hold sway over the Shia masses in Baghdad. Both factions are determined to win control of the south which contains 70 per cent of Iraq’s proven oil resources.

Meanwhile, 50 Turkish warplanes bombed 10 Iraqi Kurdish villages in the Qandil mountains in the northern autonomous Kurdish region with the aim of driving Turkish Kurdish rebels from the area. This was the first major Turkish air attack since the US invaded and occupied Iraq and was not carried out in response to the Kurdish provocations.

Turkey seeks to eradicate bases in Iraq of the Turkish Kurdish Workers Party (PKK), which has been fighting the Turkish army since 1984 in a conflict which has cost more than 35,000 lives, mostly those of Kurdish civilians.