British Terrorist Operation in Basra, Tanks on Fire, Four Iraqis Killed, Two Captured British Undercover Soldiers Freed After Demolishing Prison Hollywood Style

 

British Tanks Free Captured UK Soldiers

Arab News, Agencies

BASRA, Iraq, 20 September 2005 —

In a major show of force, British soldiers used tanks to break down the walls of the central jail in the southern city of Basra late yesterday and freed two Britons, allegedly undercover commandos, who had been arrested on charges of shooting two Iraqi policemen.

Aquil Jabbar, an Iraqi television cameraman who lives across the street from the jail, said about 150 Iraqi prisoners also fled as British commandos stormed inside and rescued their comrades.

Yesterday’s violence in Basra, 550 km south of the capital, flared earlier in the day as demonstrators hurled stones and Molotov cocktails at British tanks and at least four people were killed. The fighting erupted after British armor encircled the jail where the two Britons were being held. During the melee one soldier could be seen scrambling for his life from a burning tank and the rock-throwing mob. Press Association, the British news agency, reported that three British soldiers were hurt during the violence, but said none of their injuries was life-threatening, according to Ministry of Defense officials in London.

Arab satellite television stations showed pictures of two Western men sitting on the floor of the jail building with their hands tied behind their backs. One of the men had a bandage covering most of the top of his head, the other had blood on his clothes. Television commentary identified them only as Britons.

British military officials had declined to comment on reports the two arrested men were soldiers operating undercover, but the Ministry of Defense in London told Britain’s Press Association that “two military personnel were detained by Iraqi authorities earlier today.”

“They were driving a civilian car and were dressed in civilian clothes when a shooting took place between them and Iraqi patrols,” the official said. “We are investigating and an Iraqi judge is on the case questioning them.”

Police and Interior Ministry officials said the men were wearing traditional Arab headdresses for their undercover mission. Mohammed Al-Abadi, an official in the Basra governorate, said the two men looked suspicious to police. “A policeman approached them and then one of these guys fired at him. Then the police managed to capture them,” Abadi told reporters. “They refused to say what their mission was. They said they were British soldiers and (suggested) to ask their commander about their mission,” he added.

Reuters Television footage showed the tank trying to reverse away from trouble after it came under attack, apparently from petrol bombs as a crowd gathered around it. Within moments flames emerged from the top of the tank, although it was not clear if the vehicle itself was on fire or if the flames came from materials burning on top of the tank.

One soldier climbed out of the vehicle’s hatch and jumped clear of it, as the crowd pelted him with stones. A witness said people drove through the streets of Basra with loudhailers demanding that the undercover Britons remain in detention and be sent to jail.

Meanwhile, a nephew of the captured Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has been sentenced to life behind bars for making bombs and financing resistance activities, the government said. “The Iraqi criminal court has convicted Aymen Saba'awi, a half-brother nephew of Saddam Hussein, for being an active resistance supporter, and for the possession and manufacture of explosive devices, and sentenced him to life imprisonment,” a government statement said. It was the first known case of a relative of Iraq’s former president being tried and convicted. Sba'awi’s sentence was unveiled exactly a month before Saddam himself is due to go on trial.

Tension in Iraq as Britain frees hostage soldiers

Khaleej Times, (AFP)

20 September 2005

BASRA, Iraq -

Tension was running high in southern Iraq on Tuesday after British troops freed two undercover soldiers taken hostage by Shi'i militiamen following a shooting and mob riots in Basra.

In northern Iraq, four American security agents were killed in a suicide bomb attack on a US diplomatic convoy in Mosul on Monday.

British forces stormed a police station late on Monday where the two soldiers were initially detained after troops were firebombed by angry crowds in Basra, an area usually free of the violence that rocks much of Iraq.

The pair were later freed from a house where they had been taken by militiamen from the police jail, triggering concern in Britain about possible collusion.

The rescue operation followed a shooting incident and riots in which two British armoured vehicles were torched by angry crowds after the arrest of two Shi'i militia leaders.

British Defence Secretary John Reid said soldiers seen fleeing from a burning tank under attack from the stone-throwing mobs suffered only minor injuries -- despite violent scenes which stunned British newspapers.

“But we don’t know whether the police, for instance under threat of their own death, handed two soldiers over or what was the degree of collusion,” Reid told BBC television in London.

Iraqi officials said the two soldiers, who appeared to be working undercover and who were dressed in Arab clothes and driving a civilian car, were detained after opening fire on a police patrol.

“From an early stage, I had good reason to believe that the lives of the soldiers were at risk and troops were sent to the area of Basra near the police station to help ensure their safety by providing a cordon,” British Brigadier John Lorimer said in a statement.

“As shown on television these troops were attacked with firebombs and rockets by a violent and determined crowd,” he said.

“We’ll be following up with the authorities in Basra why the (two) soldiers weren’t immediately handed over to the multi-national forces as Iraq law ... says that they should have been.”

Lorimer said he ordered the storming of the police station after receiving information the two men had been handed over to militia elements. “An operation was then mounted to rescue them from a house in Basra.”

According to an Iraqi member of parliament, Ali Dabagh, Shi'i militiamen from the Medhi Army of cleric Moqtada Al-Sadr wanted to hold the soldiers hostage and exchange them for two of their leaders arrested Sunday by British forces.

Iraqi police lieutenant Luwai Al Mussawi, who was in the building at the time of the raid with some 70 other policemen, said British troops arrived aboard some 10 armoured vehicles.

“Two of them broke down outer walls to enter the compound and soldiers then blew the doors open with explosives,” he said.

He said none of his colleagues offered any resistance and that the British forces seized all their weapons.

Dabagh, who met on Monday with Iraqi Interior Minister Bayan Bager Sulagh, said the two soldiers were then rescued in a helicopter raid on a Basra house.

Lorimer tried to downplay the incident, saying the crowd that attacked British forces in the streets numbered 200 to 300 in a 1.5 million strong city.

Lorimer said those arrested were wanted on terrorist charges related to attacks against British occupation forces.

“We have acted against them as individuals, not as members of any particular organisation,” he said.

Iraq criticises British rescue in Basra

Khaleej Times, 20 September 2005

BASRA, Iraq -

Iraq denounced British occupation forces on Tuesday over the dramatic rescue of two undercover soldiers that could stoke hostility to the British occupation army in increasingly volatile southern Iraq.

British troops used an armoured vehicle on Monday to burst into an Iraqi jail to rescue two soldiers held by police in Basra. The British commander there said he learnt they had been handed to militia and ordered their rescue from a nearby house.

“It is a very unfortunate development that the British forces should try to release their forces the way it happened,” Haider Al Ebadi, an adviser to Prime Minister Ibrahim Ja'afari, told a news conference in Baghdad.

The operation followed rioting that began, according to police and local officials, when the two men fired on a police patrol. At least two Iraqis were killed in the violence. (The riot thus erupted in reaction to the killing of Iraqis by British occupation soldiers).

Residents of Basra, in a region with Iraq’s biggest oil reserves, called on British troops to leave the country.

“It is inappropriate for any Iraqi to be insulted by a British or an American or any other occupier, we reject the occupying forces,” said Abbas Jassim.

“The British violated the government, police and the sons of this country, which we all reject.”

British forces said their soldiers were in danger.

“From an early stage I had good reason to believe the lives of the two soldiers were at risk,” Brigadier John Lorimer, the British commander in Basra, said in a statement.

Ebadi said Iraqi security forces were justified in detaining the pair.

”They were acting very suspiciously like they were watching something and collecting information in civilian clothes in these tense times,” he said.

“What the two Britons did was literally international terrorism,” Ali Al Yassiri, an aide to Sadr said.

“If the British had condemned this, it would have calmed the situation but instead they came and demanded them back which sets a dangerous precedent.”

“Four tanks invaded the area. A tank cannon struck a room where a policeman was praying,” said policeman Abbas Hassan, standing next to mangled cars outside the police station and jail that he said were crushed by British military vehicles.

“This is terrorism. All we had was rifles.”

British Defence Secretary John Reid said the two soldiers were freed when negotiations appeared blocked.

“What happened yesterday was that two of our servicemen were arrested by Iraqi police and under the law as it stands they should have been handed back to the military authorities.”

Reid said the Iraqi Interior Ministry and local judges had asked the police to follow that procedure.

“But in the course of the day we became increasingly worried that those people in there to negotiate with the police seemed to be having no success in getting our men out.”

However, Ebadi appeared to question the British assertion that the Interior Ministry had been involved. “To my knowledge it was not dealt with centrally from Baghdad,” he said.

Reid said it was not clear whether the Iraqi police were under threat themselves or colluding with local militia.

Lorimer said troops had been sent to the police station where the two men had been detained to help ensure their safety.

“As shown on television, these troops were attacked with firebombs and rockets by a violent and determined crowd.”

Furious crowds pelted British armoured vehicles with rocks and petrol bombs after the incident in which the British undercover soldiers were said to have fired on Iraqi police.

2 British undercover soldiers detained in Basra for firing at police

Jordan Times, September 20, 2005

Angry crowds attacked a British tank with petrol bombs and rocks in Basra on Monday after Iraqi authorities said they had detained two British undercover soldiers in the southern city for firing on police.

Two Iraqis were killed in the violence, an interior ministry official said.

An Iraqi official in Iraq's second largest city said the British military had informed him that the men were undercover soldiers and that an Iraqi judge was questioning them.

"They were driving a civilian car and were dressed in civilian clothes when a shooting took place between them and Iraqi patrols," the official told Reuters.

"We are investigating and an Iraqi judge is on the case questioning them."

Reuters photographs showed one of the two men with a bandage on his head. Police and interior ministry officials said the men were wearing traditional Arab headdress for their undercover mission. Mohammad Abadi, an official in the Basra governorate, said the two men looked suspicious to police.

"A policeman approached them and then one of these guys fired at him. Then the police managed to capture them," Abadi told reporters.

"They refused to say what their mission was. They said they were British soldiers and [suggested] to ask their commander about their mission," he added. Reuters Television footage showed the tank trying to reverse away from trouble after it came under attack, apparently from petrol bombs as a crowd gathered around it.

Within moments flames emerged from the top of the tank, although it was not clear if the vehicle itself was on fire or if the flames came from materials burning on top of the tank.

One soldier climbed out of the vehicle's hatch and jumped clear of it, as the crowd pelted him with stones.

A witness said people drove through the streets of Basra with loud-hailers demanding that the undercover Britons remain in detention and be sent to jail.

British military authorities in Basra said they were investigating the incident.

Basra, capital of the Shi'i south, has been relatively stable compared with central Iraq, where Sunni Arab resistance has killed thousands of Iraqi and US forces, officials and civilians with suicide attacks, roadside bombs and shootings.

Britain said on Sunday it would if necessary increase the number of troops in Iraq as fears grew that the country was sliding towards civil war.

Britain, the main ally of the United States in Iraq, has about 8,500 soldiers in the country and has frequently said its soldiers will stay until the Iraqi government asks them to leave.