5 people were killed, 20 wounded
The Bani Malik blamed the al-Furajat and the Bani Malik attacked the headquarters of the Islamic Da‘wah Party, the Shia party of which Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, is a leader.
The Bani Malik also attacked the offices of the Movement of the Lord of the Islamic Martyrs, an organization run by the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, the Shia faction run by ‘Abd al-‘Aziz al-Hakim of the 30,000-man Badr Brigade. Guards at the two party headquarters left their posts and fled the scene as did the police.
British and other security forces did not intervene to stop the attacks and neither did the British attack helicopters that over flew the area.
The Bani Malik tribal fighters set up road blocks along the highway from al-Qurnah to al-Basrah, a road linking al-Basrah with the rest of the country, effectively cut the southern city off from the rest of the country.
Tribal fighting is a frequent occurrence in the area north of al-Basrah and that the city is often isolated from the rest of the country when the tribes in the largely Shia region take up arms against each other.