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Basra is Iraq's economy - its Rumeila oil fields tap one of the largest pools of petroleum in the world, and without its revenues the central government in Baghdad would collapse. This wealth makes Basra the site of a battle for political control between the three largest Shiite parties in Iraq: al-Hakim's SIIC, Moqtada al-Sadr's ‘Sadrist Current' and the Islamic Virtue Party, which controls the Basra governorate and is linked to the Oil Workers' Union.

The US military's progress report on Iraq is in and it's mostly bad news. But there is one unexpected success story: in the heartland of the Sunni insurgency, a group of tribes has joined with the Americans to fight Al Qaeda. The Americans report that attacks on US forces have dropped dramatically and claim that life is beginning to return to normal. The leader and symbol of this movement that the Americans claim is rapidly securing Anbar province is a sheik named Sattar Abu Risha. But is Abu Risha all he claims to be?.