British troops seize 12 suspects in Basra raids

BASRA, Iraq (Reuters) – British troops conducted raids
overnight in Basra and detained a dozen people suspected of
links to a spate of deadly attacks against British forces, a
British military spokesman said on Friday.

Military commanders suspect that militant groups with links
to Iraq’s rebel Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr have been aided
by Shi’ite Iran in carrying out the attacks. Sources in Sadr’s
Basra office said most of those arrested were Sadr supporters.

The raids came hours after British Prime Minister Tony
Blair said London suspected Iran and Lebanon’s Hizbollah might
be supplying technology and explosives to Shi’ite Muslim
militant groups operating in Iraq, although he said he had no
proof.

Hizbollah and Iran deny the accusations.

Military spokesman Major Steven Melbourne in Basra said:
“We had an operation last night in Basra and 12 people were
arrested. The investigation is ongoing and we cannot give any
details about the people who were detained.

“There have been a lot of attacks against multi-national
forces in recent weeks and there were certain individuals that
we needed to question and about whom we had good intelligence.”

British and U.S. forces have been repeatedly attacked in
recent months by roadside bombs packed with “shaped charges,”
which are much more deadly than conventional roadside bombs.

Six British troops have been killed since July in attacks
that appeared to be the work of the more powerful bombs.

Blair, speaking during a news conference in London with
Iraqi President Jalal Talabani on Thursday said:

“What is clear is that there have been new explosive
devices used not just against British forces but elsewhere in
Iraq. The particular nature of those devices leads us either to
Iranian elements or to Hizbollah … However, we cannot be
certain of this at the present time.”

Sources in Sadr’s office in Basra said those detained
included several lieutenants in Basra’s interior affairs
department, which is part of the Interior Ministry, and an
official with the local electricity authority.

“They are mostly Sadr people,” one of the sources said.

He said some of the suspects were seized from the police
building that British forces attacked late last month to free
two undercover soldiers who had been detained by Iraqi police.
The British military spokesman would not confirm that.

The arrests run the risk of increasing tensions between the
8,500 British troops serving in Iraq and the local population.

After the detention of the two British soldiers last month,
angry crowds of young men attacked British military vehicles
with petrol bombs and rocks, forcing a unit to pull back.

The sources in Sadr’s office said the arrests took place
late on Thursday, shortly after the men had broken fast on the
second day of Ramadan, the Muslim holy month, in what could be
seen as a slight and provoke more anger.

The military spokesman in Basra would not say exactly when
the arrests took place, however, saying only that they had been
conducted peacefully, with no shots fired, and that more
details would be made available shortly.