British troops arrest Iraq police after attacks
By AFP
Middle East Times
Published October 7, 2005
British troops in southern Iraq have arrested 12 people, including policemen and militiamen, on terrorist charges following recent attacks on their forces, a British commander said on Friday.
"Some of the individuals we have arrested are linked to militia groups in Basra ... some of the individuals are members of the Basra police service," Brigadier John Lorimer said in a statement following the Thursday evening arrests.
A leader of the Mehdi Army militia, loyal to firebrand Shia cleric Moqtada Al Sadr, said that all those detained belonged to his organization.
"They all belong to the Mehdi Army," Fatah Al Sheikh said.
Sheikh, who is also a member of the national parliament belonging to Sadr's faction, said that the arrests were part of "a US-British plot to hobble the Sadr movement" ahead of the December general elections.
"What has happened in Basra is very serious because it could serve to trigger a revolt against the British like what happened in the 1920s" when the British ruled the country, he added.
Lorimer, for his part, said that the arrests followed the killing over the past two months of eight coalition soldiers and six other members of the multinational force (MNF) in the province.
"It is very concerning to us that members of Basra police are involved in terrorism," Larimer said.
"Nobody who has been involved in murdering MNF soldiers should be allowed to hide behind their uniform," he added.
Since the US-led March 2003 invasion of the country, 95 British military personnel have died as a result of combat, accident or natural causes.
British forces were forced to take the matter into their hands as other members of the Iraqi police were "prevented from working with MNF on the ruling of the Provincial Council" because of the current boycott, the general added.
Weaponry was confiscated during their raid.
The latest detentions follow those last month of two more Mehdi Army leaders in Basra on terrorist-related charges.
Shortly thereafter two undercover British soldiers were seized by police and British armed intervention to win their release sparked violence and a rift with local authorities who announced that they would no longer cooperate with the British who have a force of about 8,000 soldiers in Iraq, mainly in the south.
The military said that they were forced to intervene after local police handed over their two soldiers to local militiamen.
Attacks on coalition forces in southern Iraq have mostly involved roadside bombs, and British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Thursday said that some of these bombs might have come from Shia Iran, or from the Tehran-backed Hizbullah militia in Lebanon.
The United States shares Blair's concerns on Iran's role in Iraq, State Department spokesman Sean McCormak said for his part on Thursday.
Meanwhile, US Brigadier General Carter Ham said on Thursday that there were increasing indications that bomb-making materials were being smuggled undetected into Iraq from Iran, with at least some of the materials destined for Shia militias.
US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in August also said that Iranian weapons had been found in Iraq on more than one occasion.
Ham did not detail the nature of the devices, but they are reported to include shaped explosive charges, capable of penetrating armor, and more sophisticated triggering devices.
He said that the devices were destined for Iraqi militias in the south as well as in other parts of the country.
In Baghdad US officers said that 58 of these shaped charges, which also go under the name of explosively-formed projectiles (EFP), had been used or had been found in and around the capital since April.
"We have found these devices mostly in Shia areas," a senior officer said.
Sunni insurgents and extremists associated with Abu Mussab Al Zarqawi were also interested in acquiring them, Ham suggested.
"Sometimes there is cooperation between Shia and Sunnis extremists even though they make strange bedfellows," another US officer said.
