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British Storm Basra Jail with Tanks

by Juan Cole (reposted)
Tuesday, September 20, 2005
Sabrina Tavernisse of the New York Times gives the only account of alarming events in Basra I have yet seen that makes sense.

The Guardian seems to me to have left out some key information.

Anyway, here's my timeline for what happened.

September 5:

The BBC reports that "Fusilier Donal Anthony Meade, 20, from Plumstead in south east London, and Fusilier Stephen Robert Manning, 22, from Erith in Kent, were killed by a roadside bomb on 5 September 2005 . . . They had been travelling in a convoy which was hit about five miles east of Shaibah airbase, in Basra province."

The British appear to have believed that this attack was the work of Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army.

September 11:

The BBC reports, "Major Matthew Bacon was killed in an attack in Basra, in southern Iraq, on 11 September 2005 when a roadside bomb struck the armoured vehicle he was travelling."

So the British are facing increased casualties and concerted attacks in early September. Convinced that the attacks are coming from Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army, they finally move against that group on Sunday.

September 18:

BBC World Monitoring
September 18, 2005

FURTHER ON AL-SADR AIDE'S ARREST IN BASRA

Text of report from Iraqi Al-Sharqiyah TV on 18 September

An Iraqi-British force at dawn arrested a prominent close associate of Al-Sayyid Muqtada al-Sadr in Basra City, southern Iraq. A spokesman for the British Army confirmed what Al-Sadr's Office in Basra announced, saying that Shaykh Ahmad al-Fartusi was arrested in his house along with his brother and a third man. The British spokesman said that the arrest took place following an investigation by the multinational forces regarding individuals who carried out terrorist attacks against the multinational forces.

Source: Al-Sharqiyah, Baghdad, in Arabic 1210 gmt 18 Sep 05"


This is the Multinational Forces announcement:


IRAQ: MULIT-NATIONAL DIVISION SOUTHEAST NAMES TERROR SUSPECTS:

In the early hours of Sept. 18, an operation was conducted by Multi National Division - South East in the districts of Al Jameat and Tuninah in Basra. This operation was the result of an ongoing Multi-National Force investigation that identified individuals believed to be responsible for organizing terrorist attacks against Coalition forces, resulting in the deaths of nine members of Coalition forces in the past two months in Basra. The operation resulted in three individuals being detained.

Among those arrested are Sheik Ahmed Majid Farttusi and Sayyid Sajjad, known leaders of the Mahdi Militia in Basra.

“I am well aware that the people that we have arrested are prominent individuals in Basra,” commented Brigadier John Lorrimer, British Army commander of the 12th Mechanized Brigade in Basra. “But let me make it absolutely clear: we have acted against them as individuals, not as members of any particular organization. As the people of Basra you are entitled to your own religious beliefs and political opinions. Those are not matters for MNF. We will not, however, tolerate terrorism and will act against it whenever we can.”


There were immediate protests by Sadrists in Basra, who barricaded the streets in the center of the city. AP reported that "200 militiamen with automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades set fire to tires as they barricaded main streets". But then Muqtada's envoys dispersed them, asking them to stand down.

September 19:

On Monday there were further protests by Sadrists about the detainment of Shaikh Ahmad Fartusi and other Sadrist leaders.

The Washington Post reported, "Earlier Monday, gunmen loyal to Sadr attacked the house of Basra's governor to press demands for the release of two prominent members of the cleric's militia whom British forces arrested Sunday."

Two British undercover men seem to have seen something suspicious and intervened. But somehow they got involved in a firefight with Iraqi government police. The two Britons were slightly wounded and were captured by Iraqi police (which seems to be penetrated by the Badr Corps, the Sadrists and other Shiite paramilitaries.)

Then a Sadrist crowd tried to storm the jail where the two British special forces operatives were being held by the provincial government. The Shiite crowds appear to have intended to hold them as hostages to be traded for Fartusi et al.

It was at that point that the British tanks rolled against the jail.

In freeing the two Britons, they inadvertently let 150 other prisoners escape, presumably some of them involved in the guerrilla movement. Two Iraqis were killed in related violence.

Then crowds attacked British military vehicles, setting 2 afire with Molotov cocktails.

The entire episode reeks of "dual sovereignty," in which there are two distinct sources of government authority. Social historian Charles Tilly says that dual sovereignty signals a revolutionary situation.

Note that in Basra, a city of about 1.3 million, largely Shiite, the Muqtada al-Sadr group is not very big. Most Sadrists belong to the rival al-Fadila party, led by Muhammad Yaqubi. But small groups can cause a lot of trouble.

In other news, there were bombings outside Karbala and at Mahmudiyah targetting Shiite pilgrims to the holy city of Karbala to commemorate Muhammad al-Mahdi, the Shiite promised one. Several pilgrims were killed.

posted by Juan @ 9/20/2005 06:30:00 AM

§UK admits Basra jail raid
by ALJ
The British government has admitted its troops smashed into an Iraqi police jail in an effort to rescue two detained undercover agents, although neither captive was in the prison at the time of the raid.

Declining to comment on why two armed British nationals disguised as Iraqis would be in Basra, the Ministry of Defence told Aljazeera.net it didn't matter if both men were out of uniform with no identification.

"Iraqi law requires any coalition force members to be handed back - once it was established they were foreign soldiers, they should have been handed over.

"There was even an order from the Iraqi Ministry of the Interior that both men should have been released," the spokesman added.

Asked whether the raid suggested that using force in Iraq to achieve an objective was acceptable, the defence official said the "vast majority of Iraqis in Basra are law-abiding".

"We were dealing with a small group of between 200 and 300 people. Naturally, the brigadier [John Lorimer] fully considered the consequences of what he was doing."

Lorimer, the UK's top military official in Basra, said in a media statement that "his concern for the arrested men increased after he received information they had been handed over to militia elements".

Eventual rescue

And a second defence official said that although the raid - which appears to have devastated the police station - had been unsuccessful, it allowed troops to obtain accurate intelligence as to where the two men would be found.

"Unfortunately they weren't released and we became concerned for their safety. As a result a Warrior infantry fighting vehicle broke down the perimeter wall in one place.

"Our guys went in there and searched it from top to bottom in order to go and recover our two soldiers who had been detained," he said.

The two undercover agents were later rescued from a house in Basra. The operation followed a shooting incident and riots in which two British armoured vehicles were torched as their crews fled for safety in the southern Iraqi city of Basra.

British Defence Secretary John Reid said the soldiers seen emerging from a burning tank under mob attack suffered only minor injuries - despite violent scenes that stunned British newspapers.

No Iraqi Foreign Ministry spokesman contacted by Aljazeera.net was prepared to comment on the prison raid.

But an Iraqi member of parliament, Ali Dabagh, said the Shia militiamen from the Mahdi Army had attempted to take the British soldiers hostage to exchange them for two militia leaders arrested on Sunday by British forces.

London-based independent defence analyst Paul Beaver said the problem appeared to have been caused by a British intelligence operation to infiltrate insurgent forces going wrong.

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/5B9D68F9-E629-41D5-BD68-D1DE59211CF3.htm
§ Iraq probe into soldier incident
by more
The Iraqi government has launched an investigation into the events that led the British Army to storm a police station in search of two UK soldiers.

Both men were members of the SAS elite special forces, sources told the BBC's Richard Galpin in Baghdad.

The soldiers were arrested by police and then handed over to a militia group, the British Army says.

Iraq's interior ministry ordered the police force in Basra to release the soldiers but that order was ignored.

Instead they ended up in the hands of Shia militia, prompting the dramatic rescue, the Ministry of Defence said.

Basra governor Mohammed al-Waili said the men - possibly working undercover - were arrested for allegedly shooting dead a policeman and wounding another.

Richard Galpin said al-Jazeera news channel footage, purportedly of the equipment carried in the men's car, showed assault rifles, a light machine gun, an anti-tank weapon, radio gear and medical kit.

This is thought to be standard kit for the SAS operating in such a theatre of operations, he said.

The arrests sparked angry protests from locals in which British vehicles were attacked and set on fire.

Haydar al-Abadi, a spokesman for Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, said the British rescue had been "a very unfortunate development".

"My understanding is that, first, it happened very quickly. Second, there is lack of discipline in the whole area regarding this matter...

"It is a very unfortunate development that the British forces should try to release their soldiers the way it happened, it's very unfortunate."

Brigadier John Lorimer said it was of "deep concern" the men detained by police ended up held by Shia militia, something that put their lives in danger.

In a statement, Brig Lorimer said that under Iraqi law the soldiers should have been handed over to coalition authorities, but this failed to happen despite repeated requests.

He said the British vehicles attacked outside the police station had been attempting to maintain a cordon because it was obvious from a very early stage that the two British captives were in danger. Three British soldiers were injured in the melee, with a number of Iraqi casualties.

After troops broke into the police station to confirm the men were not there, they staged a rescue from a house in Basra, said the commanding officer of 12 Mechanised Brigade in Basra.

BBC Defence Correspondent Paul Wood said local police revealed the whereabouts of the two men after the station was stormed.

"At the point of a 30mm cannon - no shots were fired - but at the point of this cannon, the Iraqi police gave away the location of where the two British soldiers had been taken," he said.

A Ministry of Defence (MoD) spokesman earlier said a Warrior armoured vehicle had broken down the perimeter wall at the police station.

Mr al-Waili said more than 10 vehicles and helicopters had been used in an operation that was a "barbaric act of aggression".

In a statement, Defence Secretary John Reid said the soldiers were being treated for minor injuries.

Mr Reid said: "We remain committed to helping the Iraqi government for as long as they judge that a coalition presence is necessary to provide security."

The BBC's Paul Wood said none of Basra's 20,000 police officers had helped the UK troops "partly because of reticence by their commanders, partly because, I am afraid, they have been infiltrated by these militants".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4264614.stm
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by more
Tensions between British forces and Shi'ites in southern Iraq are at a dangerous and chaotic low after British armoured forces smashed down a jail wall to free two British undercover soldiers arrested by Iraqi police.

Iraqi authorities in the southern oil city of Basra claimed that British armoured vehicles demolished part of its main jail and snatched the two men - thought to be commandos in Arab clothing who allegedly fired on Iraqi police officers yesterday.

However, Britain's Defence Ministry said its troops used an armoured vehicle to smash down a prison wall out of fear that the two men had been handed over to Iraqi militia.

The pair were not found in the jail but were later discovered in a house and released.

The incident was part of a chaotic day of rioting, in which at least two Iraqis were killed.

The clashes raise questions about how much sovereignty Iraqi authorities have really been granted when the US-led Coalition Provision Authority handed over power to an interim Iraqi government in the northern summer of 2004.

It's not clear what effect it might have on the work of Australian troops protecting Japanese forces in the city of Samawah, north-west of Basra.Outside Basra jail, a melee broke out in the streets as angry demonstrators attacked the encircling British armour with stones and Molotov cocktails.

During the chaos, one British soldier could be seen scrambling for his life from a burning Warrior armoured personnel carrier 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.

After nightfall, 10 British armoured vehicles returned to the jail, crashed through walls and freed the two captives, witnesses said. An Associated Press reporter saw the vehicles smash into the jail.

While witnesses and officials said the British raid used "tanks," it was not clear whether the tracked vehicles were Challenger 2 Main Battle Tanks or Warrior Infantry Fighting Vehicles, both in use by British forces in Iraq.

The arrests of the two British soldiers yesterday appeared to have been the first real and public test of how far that sovereignty extends.

There have been no known incidents of Iraqi authorities arresting US soldiers operating in the Iraqi heartland.

Mohammed al-Waili, the governor of Basra province, condemned the British for raiding the prison, an act he called "barbaric, savage and irresponsible".

"A British force of more than 10 tanks backed by helicopters attacked the central jail and destroyed it. This is an irresponsible act," al-Waili said, adding that the British force had spirited the prisoners away to an unknown location.

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

While the Shi'ite-dominated south of Iraq, where 8,500 British troops are based, has been far quieter than US-patrolled Sunni regions to the north, Britons have come under increasingly frequent attacks in recent weeks.

The British military has reported 96 deaths since the war began in 2003.

That compares with the deaths of 1,899 Americans elsewhere.

Basra authorities reported arresting the two Britons, described as special forces commandos dressed in Arab clothing, for allegedly shooting two Iraqi policemen, one of whom died.

British armour then encircled the jail where the two Britons were held.

Television cameramen from Arab satellite broadcasters in the Persian Gulf were allowed to photograph the two men, who appeared to be Westerners and who were by that time sitting on the floor in the jail in blue jeans and T-shirts, 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.

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2005/09/20/1126982025318.html?from=top5
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