BASRA, Iraq (
CNN) -- The man, blindfolded and handcuffed, crouches in the corner of the detention center while an Iraqi soldier grills him about rampant crimes being carried out by gangs in the southern city of Basra.
"How many girls did you kill and rape?" the soldier asks.
"I raped one, sir," the man responds.
"What was her name?"
"Ahlam," he says.
Ahlam was a university student in the predominantly Shiite city of Basra. The detainee said the gang he was in kidnapped her as she was leaving the university, heading home.
"They forced me, and I killed her with a machine gun, sir," he says.
The suspect, who is unshaven and appears to be in his 20s or 30s, was arrested by Iraq security forces after they retook most of Basra in April.
CNN was shown what authorities say was his first confession. On it are the names of 15 girls whom he admitted kidnapping, raping and killing. The youngest girl on the list was just 9 years old.
Basra turned into a battleground between warring Shiite factions vying for control of the country's oil-rich south after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. Basra's streets teemed with Shiite militias armed with weapons, mostly from Iran, according to the Iraqi forces and the U.S. military. Watch a mom describe her three sons killed »
For four years after the invasion, Basra was under the control of British forces, but they were unable to contain the violence and withdrew in September last year.
Women bore the brunt of the militias' extremist ideologies. The militants spray-painted threats on walls across Basra, warning women to wear headscarves and not to wear makeup. Women were sometimes executed for the vague charge of doing something "un-Islamic."
In the wasteland on the outskirts of Basra, dotted with rundown homes, the stench of death mixes with the sewage. Local residents told the Iraqi army that executions often take place in the area, particularly for women, sometimes killed for something as seemingly innocuous as wearing jeans.
Militias implemented their own laws with abandon, threatening stores for displaying mannequins with bare shoulders or for selling Western music. Many store owners are still too frightened to speak publicly.
But the horrors of militia rule are now surfacing as some residents begin to feel more comfortable speaking out.
Inside her rundown home, Sabriya's watery eyes peer out from under her robe. She points to the first photo of one of her sons on the wall.
"This one was killed because he was drinking," she says.
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