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Iraqi mob killed britons { June 26 2003 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A33526-2003Jun25.html?nav=hptop_tbhttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A33526-2003Jun25.html?nav=hptop_tb
Iraqi Mob Killed Britons
Dispute Over Market Patrol Escalated Into Siege
By Rajiv Chandrasekaran
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, June 26, 2003; Page A01
MAJAR AL-KABIR, Iraq, June 25 -- The attack on British forces here that killed six military police officers Tuesday was carried out by a mob of Iraqis enraged that paratroops had sought to patrol the town's market, witnesses and local officials said today.
After a seemingly prosaic dispute between the paratroops and townspeople escalated into an intense firefight, witnesses said, scores of Iraqis armed with assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenade launchers laid an Alamo-like siege to a police station where British military police were training local patrolmen. At least four soldiers were killed at close range when their ammunition ran out.
"Almost the whole city was outside," said Ahmed Hassan, a police trainee who was inside the station but escaped through a side window. "It was not a small attack. It was like a war."
The clash was the most intense resistance U.S. and British forces have faced since President Bush declared an end to major combat operations in Iraq on May 1.
Unlike recent fatal assaults on U.S. troops in restive central Iraq, which American officials have blamed on fighters loyal to Saddam Hussein, the siege at the police station in this small southeastern town did not appear to have been connected to the former president's supporters. Instead, residents and officials said, it was motivated by a growing anger at the foreign occupation of Iraq among people who just 10 weeks ago welcomed the fall of Hussein's government, raising concerns among U.S. and British officials that resistance activity may be broadening into areas they assumed were pacified.
In Majar al-Kabir and nearby towns, where local Shiite Muslim militias chased out Hussein's Baath Party government before invading troops arrived, British soldiers had adopted a low profile, refraining from shows of force and making relatively few trips into populated areas. But orders to confiscate banned weapons, such as rocket-propelled grenades, led them to intensify searches of private homes, which many residents contend have been conducted in ways that violate conservative local customs. The Iraqis' rage has been compounded by what they regard as insufficient progress by the United States and Britain in addressing the economic disruption and lack of basic services that followed the war.
"We freed our city. We kicked out the Baathists," said Talal Ahmed, 31, a shopkeeper who was appointed to speak on behalf of several local police officers and government officials. "The British did not free our city. We don't need them."
Ahmed and other residents said Tuesday's violent confrontation in this town 230 miles southeast of Baghdad began with a seemingly routine military patrol through the town's market, two perpendicular streets crowded with vegetable stands and shops.
Irate residents began shouting at the red-bereted paratroops. Rocks were thrown and, according to witnesses, an Iraqi fired at least one shot into the air. The British returned fire, first with rubber bullets and then with live ammunition, witnesses said.
"It was a situation that seemed to rise out of nothing and become very volatile," said Lt. Col. Ronnie McCourt, the spokesman for British forces in southern Iraq.
The confrontation became so intense, witnesses said, that the paratroops retreated down the main street under a hail of gunfire, returning fire as they moved. Although reinforcements arrived and the paratroops were extracted, a dual-rotor Chinook helicopter was hit with a rocket-propelled grenade as an armed throng converged upon the British evacuation point from several directions, the witnesses said.
"The people were shooting at them from everywhere," said Ahmed Fartosi, 37, an administrator at a humanitarian aid center who observed the battle. "The street was like hell. There were bullets everywhere. It was just like a war."
British military officials said seven soldiers in the helicopter were injured as well as one paratrooper on the ground.
Four Iraqis were killed and about a dozen injured, according to a nurse at the local hospital.
Either during that clash or shortly after, residents said dozens of people armed with AK-47 assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenade launchers besieged the town's police station, about a quarter-mile from the market, where six members of the British Royal Military Police were inside training members of the town's new police force. The attackers shouted for the British police to drop their weapons and leave the building, which they refused to do, Hassan said. When the attackers began firing at the concrete-and-brick building, he said, the British fired back through windows and from the roof.
The Iraqis inside the compound quickly pried the bars off a side window and fled the compound, Hassan said. He and others who witnessed the gun battle said it lasted for about two hours, until the British soldiers ran out of ammunition. At that point, Hassan and others said, the mob rushed into the compound and killed the soldiers.
"They kept fighting and fighting until they had no more bullets," said Samir Mohammed, a teacher who said he watched the exchange of fire.
Some witnesses and Iraqi police officers who entered the station after the shooting said they found the bodies of four British soldiers. They said two others were killed several hundred yards away, at an agricultural school. But others in the town said all six soldiers were killed inside the police station.
British military officials said they were still investigating the incident and could not specify where the killings occurred.
Evidence at the station appeared consistent with accounts that at least some of the soldiers were killed from inside the building. Several bullet holes in interior walls appeared to have resulted from gunfire originating from an inner courtyard. Bloodstains on the floor suggested at least one soldier was killed in a hallway.
"They were murdered," McCourt said. He called the attack "unprovoked."
It was not immediately clear why the reinforcements sent to evacuate the paratroops did not also extract the military police officers. Local officials said British military police, who had been visiting the station regularly, did not appear to coordinate with the paratroops, who were making their first venture into the market. And once the police came under fire, they were unable to call for help because their radios were in their Land Rovers, which were parked in front of the compound, Hassan said.
Although McCourt insisted that British commanders "knew where our forces were," he said military officials still did not know "the relation between the two events or the sequence of the two events."
But people in Majar al-Kabir, situated in a swath of fertile farmland fed by tributaries of the Tigris River, said the two incidents were closely related. They said the people in the market were furious at the presence of the paratroops because the town's leaders had just signed an agreement with a British officer under which local authorities would collect banned weapons in exchange for a commitment that British troops refrain from house-to-house searches for two months.
The agreement had been reached Monday after a dispute over searches in a nearby village on Sunday led to protests here. Some villagers alleged that soldiers had behaved rudely and killed a few of their animals. To quell their anger, Karim Mahoud, a former anti-Hussein guerrilla fighter who had been empowered by the British to police the local population, promised to have his men search for weapons and hand them over.
Ahmed, the town spokesman, insisted the British violated the agreement by trying to patrol the market. "They broke the deal," he said. "They went inside the market with the guns in a way that upset people."
McCourt acknowledged the existence of the agreement but said it did not prohibit British forces from conducting patrols. He also insisted that all searches are "conducted in such a way as to avoid infringing Arab religious and cultural sensibilities."
In Majar al-Kabir, though, the dispute over searches is wrapped in a larger debate over the very presence of British troops in the area. Many in the town, long a center of resistance to Hussein's government and the target of security operations under his rule, contend that because Mahoud's militia took control of the area before British forces arrived, they should be allowed to look after their own affairs.
"If the British want to be in Iraq, that's fine," said Ali Abbas, 46, the owner of a small shop in the market. "But let them stay outside of our city."
Ahmed said British officers had given town leaders a 48-hour ultimatum to hand over those responsible for the shooting, although British officials denied that such an order was issued.
Although several tribal sheiks visited a nearby British base to offer condolences this afternoon, there was little regret or sympathy among the young men milling about the gutted police station or several other municipal buildings.
"What happened at the police station was not spontaneous," Ahmed insisted. "It happened after we asked them to leave. If they had left, this would not have happened."
As several men surrounding him nodded in agreement, Ahmed continued: "We don't want to kill them. But if they come to search our homes, to invade our city, this will be our reaction."
© 2003 The Washington Post Company
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