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Undercover brits in basra dress as iraqis { September 20 2005 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/c2cf5676-29f0-11da-b890-00000e2511c8.htmlhttp://news.ft.com/cms/s/c2cf5676-29f0-11da-b890-00000e2511c8.html
Tensions grow in Basra as militias vie for supremacy
By Steve Negus, Iraq Correspondent
Published: September 20 2005 17:22 | Last updated: September 20 2005 17:22
The British military's raid on a Basra jail on Monday highlights the uneasy situation in the south. In the oil rich city and nearby provinces, rival militias confront each other and the multinational forces in their midst in local power struggles.
The level of violence in Basra is low compared to Baghdad or Iraq's Sunni Arab heartland, but occasional reports of clashes and assassinations suggest that the general calm throughout the south represents not so much stability as a stand-off between armed camps, each with their allies among local police forces.
Tensions in Basra began to mount earlier this month when three British soldiers were killed in two separate roadside bomb attacks in the city. On Sunday, the British military arrested Sheikh Ahmed al-Fartusi, a follower of Moqtada al-Sadr, the radical Shia cleric, reportedly for co-ordinating attacks against multinational troops.
On Monday, according to Iraqi officials in Basra, two British undercover soldiers dressed as Iraqis were arrested by local police after they allegedly fired on a traffic policeman who tried to detain them.
John Reid, UK defence secretary, said the British military requested to take custody of the two men, but were rebuffed, possibly because the police were colluding with a militia.
Meanwhile, according to officials in Baghdad, militiamen from the Sadrists' Mahdi Army converged on the jail attempting to seize the soldiers, presumably to trade them for Mr Fartusi, the captured cleric.
The British military moved into the area, raiding first the jail, then a nearby house where the soldiers were rescued.
Some press reports claimed that 150 prisoners fled the jail during the raid, although the British military has denied anyone escaped. Militias such as the Mahdi Army and its rival, the Badr Forces, are generally considered to wield far more power in towns such as Basra than the police, many of whom reportedly moonlight for the militias. In May, the then-head of Basra's police force said half his force were secretly working for political parties, and some were participating in assassinations.
On Monday, an Iraqi reporter for the New York Times and the Guardian was found dead after being abducted from his home by a group of armed men claiming to be police officers. He had reported on tensions between Basra's rival militias.
In August, a US freelance reporter living in the city was kidnapped and murdered days after he wrote an article criticising the British military for failing to act against the militias' power inside the police.
Meanwhile, many members of the Mahdi Army are reportedly eager to take up arms again against foreign troops, despite having agreed in October to lay down weapons. Arrests of Mahdi Army leaders frequently bring armed militiamen out in the streets of Baghdad's Shia slums, but normally confrontations die down after Mr Sadr and other movement leaders appeal for calm.
In August, however, a dispute between Sadrists and the Badr Forces in Najaf escalated into street clashes that left eight people dead.
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