Jailbreak attacked as ‘barbaric’
news agency, reported that three British soldiers were hurt during the violence, but said none of their injuries was lifethreatening.
After nightfall, 10 British armoured vehicles returned to the jail, crashed through walls and freed the two captives, witnesses said. An Associated Press reporter saw the vehicles smash into the jail.
While witnesses and officials said the British raid used “ tanks,” it was not clear whether the tracked vehicles were Challenger 2 Main Battle Tanks or Warrior Infantry Fighting Vehicles, both in use by British forces in Iraq. The Warrior seen earlier was mounted with a 30 mm cannon. The different versions of events came on a chaotic day that raised questions about how much sovereignty Iraqi authorities really were granted when the U. S.- led Coalition Provision Authority handed over power to an interim Iraqi government in the summer of 2004. The arrests of the two British soldiers yesterday appeared to have been the first real and public test of how far that sovereignty extends. There have been no known incidents of Iraqi authorities arresting U. S. soldiers operating in the Iraqi heartland. Mohammed al- Waili, the governor of Basra province, condemned the British for raiding the prison, an act he called “ barbaric, savage and irresponsible’’
“ A British force of more than 10 tanks backed by helicopters attacked the central jail and destroyed it. This is an irresponsible act,” al- Waili said, adding that the British force had spirited the prisoners away to an unknown location.
Aquil Jabbar, an Iraqi television cameraman who lives across the street from the Basra jail, said about 150 Iraqi prisoners fled as British commandos stormed inside and rescued their comrades.
Late last night, the British Ministry of Defence in London said the two soldiers were freed after negotiations. A spokesman said he had no information suggesting the soldiers were freed as a result of overt military action, but stopped short of denying reports that British armour crashed through the walls of the jail.
According to the BBC, ministry officials insisted they had been talking to the Iraqi authorities to secure the release of the men, but acknowledged a wall was demolished as British forces tried to “ collect” the two prisoners. While the Shiite-dominated south of Iraq, where 8,500 British troops are based, has been far quieter than Sunni regions to the north, Britons have come under increasingly frequent attacks in recent weeks. The British military has reported 96 deaths since the war began in 2003.
That compares with the deaths of 1,899 Americans who are stationed nearer the violent insurgent regions around Baghdad and toward to the Syrian border.
Elsewhere in Iraq yesterday:
An estimated 3 million pilgrims jammed the holy city of Karbala for a major Shiite festival in defiance of insurgent declarations of all-out sectarian war.
In Baghdad, an Iraqi court sentenced one of Saddam Hussein’s nephews to life in prison for funding the country’s violent insurgency and bomb- making. It was the first known trial of any of the former leader’s family.
Militants waged more bloody attacks across the country, killing 24 police and civilians and wounding 28.
In an Internet posting, Al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al- Zarqawi purportedly promised he would not attack followers of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al- Sadr and other Shiite leaders opposed to Iraq’s U. S.backed government.
Last Wednesday, after insurgent forces were routed from their stronghold in the northern city of Tal Afar, al- Zarqawi, a Jordanian- born Sunni Arab, declared all- out war on Iraq’s majority Shiites. But in the statement on a Web site known for carrying extremist Islamist material, al- Zarqawi now appeared set on trying to split the Shiite community. “Any Shiite group that condemns the government’s crimes against the Sunnis in Tal Afar, and which doesn’t provide help to the occupation by any means, will be exempted from the attacks of the mujahedeen,” said the statement, which could not be immediately authenticated.