UK forces free two soldiers held in Iraq prison

By Alaa Habib

BASRA, Iraq (Reuters) – British forces freed two undercover
soldiers from jail in Basra late on Monday after a day of
rioting in the southern city sparked when the soldiers fired on
an Iraqi police patrol.

An Iraqi Interior Ministry official said British forces
stormed the jail using six tanks and that dozens of Iraqi
prisoners escaped during the raid. But Britain’s Ministry of
Defense said the release of the two soldiers was negotiated and
it did not believe the prison had been stormed.

“We’ve heard nothing to suggest we stormed the prison,” a
ministry spokesman said in London. “We understand there were
negotiations.”

Lisa Glover, spokeswoman for the British embassy in
Baghdad, said three people were wounded in the operation to
free the soldiers and were being treated at a nearby base. She
did not give further details of how the soldiers were freed.

The events in the mainly Shi’ite city are likely to worsen
relations between British forces responsible for security in
southern Iraq and the local population.

The two undercover soldiers were arrested on Monday after
opening fire on Iraqi police who approached them, police and
local officials said. They said the men were wearing
traditional Arab headscarves and sitting in an unmarked car.

“They were driving a civilian car and were dressed in
civilian clothes when shooting took place between them and
Iraqi patrols,” an official in Basra said.

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.”

One of the British undercover soldiers sat with a bandage
on his head after being detained, a Reuters photographer said.
His trousers were stained with blood spots.

TANK ABLAZE

Furious crowds pelted British armored vehicles with rocks
and petrol bombs after the shooting incident. Tensions in Basra
had already been stoked on Sunday when British forces arrested
two leading members of the Mehdi army, a nationalist militia
led by radical Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

A British soldier was engulfed in flames as he scrambled
out of a burning tank during the rioting, under a hail of
stones hurled by the crowd. The tank tried to reverse away from
trouble after it was attacked by Iraqis flinging petrol bombs,
burning furniture and tires.

Iraqis had driven through the streets with loudhailers
demanding that the undercover Britons remain in jail.

Basra, capital of the Shi’ite south, has been relatively
stable compared with central Iraq, where Sunni Arab insurgents
have killed thousands of Iraqi and U.S. troops, officials and
civilians with suicide attacks, roadside bombs and shootings.

But relations remain tense between the British military and
some local groups — particularly Sadr’s militia which launched
two bloody uprisings against foreign forces in 2004.

British Defense Secretary John Reid confirmed in a
statement that the two undercover soldiers were back with
British forces, but shed no light on their mission or how they
were released.

“The situation in Basra is currently calmer after a day of
disturbances. At this stage it is not possible to be certain
why these disturbances began,” he said, adding that some
British soldiers were lightly wounded during the rioting but
would soon return to duty.

The main ally of the United States, Britain said on Sunday
it would if necessary increase the number of troops in Iraq,
where it has about 8,500 soldiers.

(Additional reporting by Mariam Karouny and Luke Baker in
Baghdad and Peter Griffiths in London)