Two British soldiers have been arrested in Basra

[fedsron2us]

Two British soldiers have been arrested in the southern Iraqi city of Basra, sparking unrest outside a police station where they are being held.

It is thought the men - who were reportedly undercover - are accused of failing to stop at an Iraqi checkpoint.

UK officials said they did not know why the pair were being detained.

Two British tanks sent to the police station where the soldiers are being held were set alight in a clash between British troops and protesters.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4260894.stm

I have a nasty feeling this is about to get much, much worse. The sensible thing would be to get out now before it all blows up. Unfortunately, this move would mean that Blair would have to admit his entire policy in this region has been a complete failure from start to finish. As we know when it comes to a choice between troops lives and the possible humiliation of their political masters then the soldiers die. I just pray that a sufficient ground swell of common discontent arises in all the British political parties that Blair's position becomes untenable.

[non sociopath skin]

1. Sounds to me like the more softly-softly Brit approach ...

... is ultimately making little difference as occupied Iraq moves towards civil war and disintegration.

Of course, none of this is Bush or Blair's fault, you understand ... :sarcasm:

The Skin

[fedsron2us]

2. It appears the British army organised a jail break

for the two detainees using a detachment of tanks and armoured cars. Now I very much doubt this would have been done for a couple of ordinary squaddies who had been arrested by the local Iraqi police so this looks like an intelligence operation that has gone spectacularly wrong. Quite what activities these individuals were engaged in is not clear but it was obviously highly sensitive otherwise they would not have risked this hugely embarrassing stunt. Needless, to say the rumour mill is now spinning faster than a demented hamster wheel on LBN. One thing is certain the British government will be desperately trying to keep the true facts from the UK public. Expect obfuscation and spin by the bucket load in the next few days.

[Guy_Montag]

3. The squaddies had been handed over to local militia

according to reports.

The local police had handed the soldiers over to local militia, when this was discovered the army turned up & threatened the police to find out the location of the soldiers. So not quite a jail break, the soldiers were found held in a house near by.

I would be interested to know what they were doing. It does sound very dodgy, but would you leave your friends to the care of a bunch of thugs.

Remember what happened to the two Royal Signals who were lynched in NI.

[fedsron2us]

4. Funny this 'local militia' spin only started to appear today.

Yesterday, the media all stated that they were held in a police station This is just the MOD muddying the waters. Really it does not matter a toss what story line the government put on it as most people in the world simply do not believe a word they say. One thing is for certain, if Basra erupts into open rebellion the 8,500 British troops in the area have no chance of holding it down. Indeed, it would require far more soldiers than the 100,000 the British army currently has available worldwide. I hope for the sake of the poor squaddies that have been dumped into this mess that the lid holds on the situation until they can get out.

[Guy_Montag]

5. So you think the media would know what was going on

better than the men on the ground?

I'm not saying I believe unquestioningly what the Army say, however, I do not think that just because something is not immediately reported does not mean it's happened.

The truth emerges over time, after all an eyewitness (either a journalist or someone interviewed by journalists) at the scene will see the army enter the police station, knocking down a wall to do so, then leave. Shortly after that the army announce that they have retrieved their missing soldiers. Anyone would put 2 & 2 together & come to the obvious conclusion. What they won't see is, another group of soldiers getting their guys from another place.

You should be careful about accusing the MOD of muddying the waters, the statement I heard on Today this morning was a very simple, straightforward statment.

Whether or not you agree with the policy, the policy (law in Iraq, I believe) is that British (or American) soldiers arrested by local police, must be handed over to their army immediatly. There must have been a reason why this did not happen, & I would like to know why. Because every reason I can think of is very worrying in different ways.

btw. I too hope that our boys haven't been dumped into something they can't cope with. & I suspect they have.

[muriel_volestrangler]

6. The "shia militia" angle does smack of PR to me

It's possible it's true, but just as likely that it's made up, because it sounds better to be retreiving the soldiers from unofficial, armed religious Arabs than the Iraqi police who are meant to be on the same side as us.

But the really important question is what happened before they were arrested. So far, the only story is that the Brits opened fire on the Iraqi police when they were stopped - with a half-hearted anonymous briefing from the British that the undercover Brits were told to watch out for militia posing as police. Which doesn't, in itself, justify opening fire on them.

Even if the local police were holding them despite orders from the Iraqi ministry to hand them over, you can see why - if they were shot at, and possibly one of the police killed, they'd rightly suspect that handing the two over would mean the culprits would get away. I haven't heard anything from the British army about the men being under arrest yet.

[Guy_Montag]

7. Not heard an update today, but...

yesterday the story was, the didn't stop at a checkpoint & were fired on. They returned fire, but were captured.

I agree about the stories of militia posing as police, but it's impossible to really know what's happening there. There have been reports of militia posing as police in other parts of Iraq.

[muriel_volestrangler]

9. I don't think I've seen anything saying they returned fire

Mohammed Al Abadi, an official at the Basra governorate, said the two men looked suspicious to the police.

“A policeman approached them and then one of these guys fired at him. Then the police managed to capture them,” Abadi told reporters.

“They refused to say what their mission was. They said they were British soldiers and (suggested) to ask their commander about their mission,” he added.

http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle.asp?xfile=data/focusoniraq/2005/September/focusoniraq_September106.xml§ion=focusoniraq

The soldiers, who were said to have been wearing Arab headdress, were accused of firing at Iraqi police when stopped at a road block.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1573933,00.html

[fedsron2us]

8. In the end it does not matter what stories we believe

because what I , you or anyone else on DU thinks is immaterial. Nor do I think that the slant put on the matter by the MOD or any other government department matters one toss. The only people whose attitudes about the incident count are the majority Shia population in and around Basra. If they decide that they have had enough of the presence of the British army in their midst then this situation could get very nasty, very quickly. I am happy to admit to be being an opponent of this war but that does not mean that I want to see British soldiers killed because of the blundering policies of stupid, vain and arrogant politicians who have never seen a shot fired in anger. Most of these people are not fit to lick the boots of the average squaddie.

[Guy_Montag]

10. I think that is an excellent post & wholeheartedly agree. n/t