Farmers in southern Iraq's historic rice-growing region have diversified. Now they're moving into poppy cultivation. From The Independent:
"Rice farmers along the Euphrates, to the west of the city of Diwaniya, south of Baghdad, have stopped cultivating rice, for which the area is famous, and are instead planting poppies, Iraqi sources familiar with the area have told The Independent.
"The shift to opium cultivation is still in its early stages but there is little the Iraqi government can do about it because rival Shia militias and their surrogates in the security forces control Diwaniya and its neighbourhood. There have been bloody clashes between militiamen, police, Iraqi army and US forces in the city over the past two months.
"There has been an upsurge in violence not only in Diwaniya but in Basra, Nassariyah, Kut and other Shia cities of southern Iraq over the past 10 days. It receives limited attention outside Iraq because it has nothing to do with the fighting between the Sunni insurgents and US forces further north or the civil war between Shia and Sunni in Baghdad and central Iraq. The violence is also taking place in provinces that are too dangerous for journalists to visit. Aside from Basra, few foreign soldiers are killed.
"The fighting is between rival Shia parties and militias, notably the Mehdi Army, who support the anti-US cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, and the Badr Organisation - the military wing of the recently renamed Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC). In many, though not all, areas of southern Iraq, the latter group controls the police.
"The intra-militia violence in southern Iraq is essentially over control of profitable resources and the establishment of power bases. According to one report the violence in Diwaniya has been escalating for two months and was initially motivated by rivalry over control of opium production but soon widened into a general turf war."
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