BASRA , 14 September 2005 — When the British Royal Air Force Regiment talks of “going out to dominate the ground” around Iraq’s southern Basra airport it sometimes means adding a heavy dose of diplomacy and plenty of elbow grease.

Stationed near Iraq’s ancient marshlands, the II Squadron’s main mission is to ensure the safety of the airport’s approaches, but it has also helped rescue a nearby Marsh Arab village from rising waters.

When the village and its 700 inhabitants — Marsh Arabs of the Shiganba tribe — were swamped by rising waters, the regiment helped level it, build a new dyke, bring in earth to raise the entire surface more than a meter (three feet) and allow villagers to rebuild their homes on higher ground.

The village is hedged in between a high-level road embankment and the marshes Saddam Hussein once tried to eradicate.

Saddam drained the marshes to put down a Shiite uprising in the Middle East’s main wetland area — believed to be the basis for the biblical Garden of Eden — reducing the 9,000 square kilometers (3,500 square miles) of permanent wetlands in the 1970s to less than a tenth its original size by the time the regime was toppled in 2003.

Now when the British troops patrol the dusty road leading through the marshes, some 18 kilometers (11 miles) northwest of Basra, inhabitants of Al Madan greet them with waves, smiles, tea... and new demands for aid.

“It’s hearts and minds work,” says Squadron leader David Tait, 37, whose 140 men have deployed from Suffolk, in England.

“We help them and hope they will tell us when something bad is about to happen,” he added.

“There’s a lot of tribal discord down here and gunfire at night.

But we tend not to get involved. We’re trying to encourage the Iraqis to take responsibility for themselves,” he said.

“Iraq works on a complex tribal, historical and cultural web.

Everything we do in one area affects the others like a string on a spider’s web. By building something here we’re tugging at every other string in the web,” Tait said.

Al Madan’s residents have been involved in a 20-year blood feud with members of the more numerous Garamsha tribe whose own village sits astride the main road leading from Al Madan to Basra.

“If we tried to go into town they would kill us along the way,” says 51-year-old village elder Hadji Misir Aidi.

The British troops “respect the people here and help us,” says Aidi, who is quick to add that his village, a hodge-podge of reed and poor cinder block dwellings where local people mostly live off fishing, now needs a school.

Over the years, the Garamsha have killed 35 members of the Shiganba tribe, says Aidi. But he acknowledges that his own tribe has killed 40 of theirs.

“We offered them 10 million dinars ($6,800) in blood money” in exchange for peace. “But they don’t want the money. What they want is to kill five of us,” Aidi says.

“Maybe British troops could help arrange a peace,” he suggests tentatively.

However, the airport-tasked troops realize their larger responsibilities, too.

“We can’t just concentrate on one village,” says Flight Lieutenant Joss Wilson, who leads a three Land Rover patrol to guard against insurgent mortar attacks on the airport.

“We have to explore how it affects all the other villages before giving aid to one,” he says, inspecting a new school the regiment helped build in the village of Korah, a couple of kilometers (one mile) down the road.

Neighboring villagers can be anything but neighborly.

“You’ve got to be careful and diplomatic. If you leave out one village it could backfire on you,” says Warrant Officer Michael O’Hara, who is planning a medical centre for yet another nearby village.

The aid has softened local attitudes. British forces report fewer mortar attacks on the airport and more waves from the locals along the patrol routes.

“There’s less violence going on this year” compared to last, said 23-year-old gunner Ricky, from Devon, who keeps a lookout for trouble from atop one of the patrolling Land Rovers.

“The locals like us better. Last year they didn’t really like having us in their backyards.

“But you never know when the waving could turn to something else,” he adds.