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Iraq criticises British rescue in Basra
BASRA, Iraq - Iraq denounced British forces on Tuesday over the dramatic rescue of two undercover soldiers that could stoke hostility to the army in increasingly volatile southern Iraq.

British troops used an armoured vehicle on Monday to burst into an Iraqi jail to rescue two soldiers held by police in Basra. “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.

Residents of Basra, in a region with Iraq’s biggest oil reserves, called on British troops to leave the country. “It is inappropriate for any Iraqi to be insulted by a British or an American or any other occupier, we reject the occupying forces,” said Abbas Jassim.
Curiously, he doesn't object to Iranians.
British forces said their soldiers were in danger. “From an early stage I had good reason to believe the lives of the two soldiers were at risk,” Brigadier John Lorimer, the British commander in Basra, said in a statement.

Ebadi said Iraqi security forces were justified in detaining the pair. ”They were acting very suspiciously like they were watching something and collecting information in civilian clothes in these tense times,” he said. “What the two Britons did was literally international terrorism,” Ali Al Yassiri, an aide to Sadr, told Reuters.
Keeping eyeballs on Sadr, were they?
“If the British had condemned this, it would have calmed the situation but instead they came and demanded them back which sets a dangerous precedent.”

“Four tanks invaded the area. A tank cannon struck a room where a policeman was praying "please don't kill me!",” said policeman Abbas Hassan, standing next to mangled cars outside the police station and jail that he said were crushed by British military vehicles. “This is terrorism. All we had was rifles.”
You might want to remember how out-gunned you were next time you pinch a Brit.
British Defence Secretary John Reid said the two soldiers were freed when negotiations appeared blocked. “What happened yesterday was that two of our servicemen were arrested by Iraqi police and under the law as it stands they should have been handed back to the military authorities.”

Reid said the Iraqi Interior Ministry and local judges had asked the police to follow that procedure. “But in the course of the day we became increasingly worried that those people in there to negotiate with the police seemed to be having no success in getting our men out.”

However, Ebadi appeared to question the British assertion that the Interior Ministry had been involved. “To my knowledge it was not dealt with centrally from Baghdad,” he said.

Reid said it was not clear whether the Iraqi police were under threat themselves or colluding with local militia.

Lorimer said troops had been sent to the police station where the two men had been detained to help ensure their safety. “As shown on television, these troops were attacked with firebombs and rockets by a violent and determined crowd.” Furious crowds pelted British armoured vehicles with rocks and petrol bombs after the incident in which the British undercover soldiers were said to have fired on Iraqi police.
Why, it's almost as if they knew what was going to happen.

Posted by: Steve White 2005-09-21
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=130122