The blighted city

WHEN not organising protests at the gates of Basra’s giant oilfields, jobless graduates spend their days playing dominoes on the banks of the Shatt al-Arab river. By night, giant gas flares light the sky and their game, partly compensating for the blackouts. “We provide the oil that powers the world, but live in darkness,” says a sometime protester.

The authorities dispersed the demonstrators, violently, after Lukoil, a Russian oil firm, threatened to halt production. But few predict quiet. Bereft of hope, the players debate abandoning peaceful protest and summoning the Hashad al-Shabi, the Iranian-backed militias the ayatollahs raised to beat back Islamic State (IS), to intervene on their behalf. While the world has looked north to the war on IS, local politicians argue that the south poses no less a threat. “Basra is financing Iraq,” says Ali Shaddad al-Fares, who heads the local council’s oil committee. “Iraq’s stability depends on Basra’s stability.”