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Furor on Brits' Iraq Rescue Grows

Posted on: Thursday, 22 September 2005, 21:00 CDT

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Hundreds of Iraqi civilians and policemen, some waving pistols and AK-47s, rallied Wednesday in Basra to denounce "British aggression" in the rescue of two British soldiers.

The Basra governor threatened to end all cooperation with British forces unless Prime Minister Tony Blair's government apologizes for the deadly clash with Iraqi police. Britain defended the raid.

In London, British Defense Secretary John Reid and Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari tried to minimize the effect of the fighting, saying it would not undermine the relationship between the two nations or their determination to lead Iraq to democracy.

But the fighting raised new concerns about the power that radical Shiite militias with close ties to Iran have developed in the region, questions about the role of Britain's 8,500-strong force in Iraq and doubts about the timetable for handing over power to local security forces.

There has been disagreement about what happened late Monday, when British armor crashed into a jail to free two British soldiers who had been arrested by Iraqi police.

According to the British, Shiite Muslim militiamen moved the two soldiers from the jail to a private home while British officials tried to negotiate their release with Iraqi officials. After raiding the jail, the British say they rescued the soldiers in a nearby private home in the custody of Shiite militias.

Earlier that day, a crowd attacked British troops with stones and Molotov cocktails.

Troops had tried to negotiate with the crowd in Basra "but that had no effect and it became more hostile quite quickly after that," Sgt. Eddie Pickersgill, whose face was bruised by a rock, said in television interviews in Britain on Wednesday.

Iraqi Interior Minister Bayan Jabr disputed the British account of the raid that followed. He told the British Broadcasting Corp. the two soldiers never left police custody or the jail, were not handed over to militants, and that the British army acted on a "rumor" when it stormed the jail.

Basra's governor, Mohammed al-Waili, said the two men were moved from the jail. He said they were placed in the custody of the al- Mahdi Army, the militia of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

Lisa Glover, a British Foreign Office spokeswoman in Baghdad, said the two soldiers "were challenged by armed men in plain clothes ... and they obviously didn't know who they were being challenged by." She said British officials negotiated with Iraqi authorities in Basra for the release of the two soldiers with an Iraqi judge present. "When it became apparent they were no longer at the station, but had been moved elsewhere, we naturally became concerned."

Iraqi National Security Adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie, a Shiite politician who has criticized the British raid as "a violation of Iraqi sovereignty," acknowledged that one problem coalition forces face is that insurgents have joined the ranks of security forces.

"Iraqi security forces in general, police in particular, in many parts of Iraq, I have to admit, have been penetrated by some of the insurgents, some of the terrorists as well," he said in an interview with the BBC.

Source: Daily Breeze

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