A SUICIDE bomber gave himself up outside a Royal Marines base yesterday after abandoning his mission to detonate six hand grenades in his pockets.
A suspected Iraqi special operations unit kidnapped the 52-year-old man and threatened to shoot him unless he walked up to 40 Commando's HQ in a Basra suburb and blew himself up.
They told him British troops were sure to execute him if he tried to turn himself in, he told the Daily Mirror.
But after walking to the base he decided to take his chances and surrender.
Two sentries aimed their SA80 rifles at him as he walked up and slowly took the orange grenades out of his trouser pockets.
DRAMA: Suicide bomber Abdullah is strip searched by Royal Marines
If he had detonated them he would have killed the sentries and a BBC cameraman just 10ft away.
The base, was put on full alert during the 10 minute drama and people inside sheltered from a potential blast behind brick walls at the back of the old Iraqi army compound.
After being debriefed by intelligence officers the man, a fisherman named Abdullah, told the Mirror: "The special operations team said I had three choices - they kill me, the British kill me or I kill myself.
"I did not want to do the attack because I hate Saddam and his regime and the British I see as my friends.
"I am a Muslim and killing people is also against my religion but they gave me no choice. When I walked up to the gate I thought, I cannot do this. So I told the British soldiers I am their friend and I pulled up my shirt and showed them my weapons and they didn't shoot me."
Abdullah added: "There are other people like me that the regime forces to do things they don't want. We just want freedom." He told intelligence officers that the group, led by an army major, have been using his home near the Shatt Al Arab waterway as an HQ to plan attacks on the Marines, who took the Abu Al Khasib suburb last week.
DEADLY: Abdullah's grenades
On Wednesday night the base was attacked with three rocket propelled grenades and small arms fire. Commandos chased the group through the streets but they escaped.
Colonel Gordon Messenger, CO of 40 Commando, said: "We are obviously very pleased he had a change of heart at the last minute.
"But it does go to show the astonishing lengths of barbarity to which the dying embers of Saddam's regime are prepared to go in the hope of doing us harm.
"We have good intelligence on the group behind this attempted attack.
"We also believe they are the men who attacked our base.
"They are hiding locally and we hope to track them down very shortly."