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UK forces free two soldiers held in Iraq prison

Posted on: Monday, 19 September 2005, 17:17 CDT

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)

Source: REUTERS

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