BASRA, Iraq, 21 September 2005 — Tension ran high in southern Iraq yesterday after British troops freed two undercover soldiers taken hostage by a Shiite militia, as the American death toll in bomb attacks rose to nine over a two-day period. In northern Iraq, four American security agents were killed in a suicide bomb attack on a US diplomatic convoy in Mosul on Monday.
And a US military policeman died in a roadside bombing north of Baghdad yesterday, the military said, after four US soldiers were killed in the western town of Ramadi on Monday. Iraq denounced British forces yesterday over a dramatic rescue of two undercover soldiers that could stoke hostility to the army in increasingly volatile southern Iraq. British troops used an armored fighting vehicle on Monday to burst into an Iraqi jail in search of soldiers held by police in Basra. The British commander said he learned they had been handed to militia and ordered their rescue from a nearby house.
“It is a very unfortunate development that the British forces should try to release their forces the way it happened,” Haider Al-Ebadi, an adviser to Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari, told a news conference in Baghdad. The operation followed rioting that began, according to police and local officials, when the two men fired on a police patrol. At least two Iraqis were killed in the violence.
Southern Iraq is home to several Shiite militias, including one loyal to radical cleric Moqtada Al-Sadr, who fiercely opposes the presence of foreign troops and has led uprisings against the US military. Iraqis say the heavily armed militias act with impunity and are not answerable to the central government.
According to Iraqi MP Ali Dabagh, Shiite militiamen from the outlawed Mehdi Army of Moqtada Sadr wanted to hold the soldiers hostage and exchange them for two of their leaders arrested Sunday by British forces. British Defense Secretary John Reid said soldiers seen fleeing from a burning tank under attack from the mobs throwing stones and firebombs suffered only minor injuries — despite violent scenes which stunned British newspapers.
“But we don’t know whether the police, for instance under threat of their own death, handed two soldiers over or what was the degree of collusion,” Reid told BBC television. Iraqi officials said the two soldiers, who appeared to be working undercover and who were dressed in Arab clothes and driving a civilian car, were detained after opening fire on a police patrol.
“From an early stage, I had good reason to believe that the lives of the soldiers were at risk and troops were sent to the area of Basra near the police station to help ensure their safety by providing a cordon,” British Brig. John Lorimer said in a statement.
“As shown on television these troops were attacked with firebombs and rockets by a violent and determined crowd,” he said. “We’ll be following up with the authorities in Basra why the (two) soldiers weren’t immediately handed over to the multi-national forces as Iraq law ... says that they should have been.”
In Amman, Saddam Hussein’s legal team complained it had not been informed by Iraqi authorities of the date set for his trial or the charges against him.
“The defense has not been enabled to review any files of the charges ... despite the fact that we have made many and repeated requests to this effect,” his Iraqi lawyer Khalil Dulaimi said in a statement.
Saddam and seven of his former henchmen are due to go on trial on October 19 over the massacre of 143 people in the Shiite village of Dujail.
