20 Shia gunmen die in British retaliation

British forces have hit back at Iraqi insurgents who killed six colleagues last week, by launching an operation in which they shot dead more than 20 gunmen of Basra's rogue militias.

The attack began when a battalion-size force was sent into one of the southern city's toughest terrorist strongholds, three miles from where four soldiers, including two women, were blown up in their Warrior armoured vehicle.

An armoured force of 400 troops from the 2Bn The Rifles and 2Bn The Duke of Lancaster's Regiment, both of which suffered fatalities last week, entered the Shia Flats area on the western outskirts of Basra to search for hidden weapons.The district is notorious as one of the most dangerous in southern Iraq.

"We wanted to make quite clear there's nowhere in Basra we cannot go," a British commander told The Daily Telegraph yesterday. "We are prepared to be there in daylight and take whatever comes our way. We are not being bombed out or intimidated."

Initially there was no response as the troops began searching homes where they recovered some small arms. But then the atmosphere changed. advertisement <A HREF="http://ads.telegraph.co.uk/event.ng/Type%3dclick%26FlightID%3d18468%26AdID%3d22241%26TargetID%3d4862%26Redirect%3dhttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/main.jhtml?xml=/travel/exclusions/Supplements/espana/nosplit/espanadiff.xml" target="_top"><IMG SRC="http://ads.telegraph.co.uk/b/britannyferries/north_spain_mpu_2.gif" WIDTH=300 HEIGHT=250 BORDER=0></A>

"It was all going very well but then there was a sense something bad was about to happen as we noticed children starting to speak into their mobile phones and point at us," the commander said. "At this stage it became clear that the militia was massing for some kind of attack."

As the troops took up defensive positions around their Warrior and Bulldog armoured vehicles, Iraqi gunmen carrying AK47 assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades could be seen scurrying along rooftops and down streets. It is believed ammunition and hundreds of weapons are hidden in the area and brought into the open at short notice when the British appear.

Intelligence sources also informed the troops on the ground that Shia terrorists were heading towards them from other parts of the city.

The battle began on Tuesday afternoon with numerous rocket-propelled grenades and small arms fire hitting the British positions.

The soldiers from the Rifles and Duke of Lancaster's held off the attacks for more than two hours and shot a number of gunmen. There were no British casualties as they gradually fought their way back to their base at Basra Palace.

Coalition jets also made low flying passes to intimidate the enemy although they did not drop any bombs. During one skirmish two attackers, who fired grenades at a British position, were chased down and arrested. Both are likely to face charges.

Commanders believed that some of the dead might have been behind the ambush of a Warrior in which 2nd Lt Joanna Dyer, a close friend of Prince William at Sandhurst, and three other soldiers were killed. A sniper, possibly from Shia Flats, also killed two other soldiers earlier last week. "This was at a location where we believe those responsible for killing our people were almost certainly recruited from," a military source said.

During the battle an Iraqi policeman was shot by one of the militias. He later died.

No civilians are believed to have been killed in the fight, the military reported, although it could not rule out innocent casualties caught in the crossfire.

"While we may regret that such incidents have to take place, we will not allow militia gunmen to control parts of Basra," said Lt Col Kevin Stratford-Wright, the British military spokesman in southern Iraq.

"There are no 'no-go' areas for multi-national forces in Basra. Security is our responsibility and, in conjunction with the Iraqi security forces, we seek to provide as secure an environment as possible. This will inevitably involve taking on the rogue militia who blight the lives of people in Basra."

Official estimates put the number of Iraqis hit by British gunfire at 10 but other defence sources said that double that figure had been shot.

I didn’t say he was a God.

He, unlike yourself, has years of experience in bringing the fight to the enemy. Idiots such as yourself sit on your fat butts and pretend to have a clue. After you post, you waddle to the refrigerator and have a nice late night snack. As for the uninvited and month-late input comment, you can just stfu you old idiot.

“This doesn’t seem like any way to win a war.”

Funny, because posting arm-chair general advice on an internet message board doen’t see like a way to win a war either.

OK — I’ll let an Iraqi general speak for himself...

http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/archives/010013.php

“The Guardian has a scathing report on the British efforts in southern Iraq and the resultant influence of Iran in the Shi’ite militias vying to fill the power vacuum around Basra. It demonstrates the futility of the approach used by the British in engaging militias instead of marginalizing and defeating them, as even the Iraqi commanders on the ground explain:

When he finished his conversation, the general - who didn’t want his name published because he feared retribution from militias -stretched out his hand to me and said: “Welcome to Tehran.”

I asked him about British claims that the security situation was improving. His reply was withering: “The British came here as military tourists. They committed huge mistakes when they formed the security forces. They appointed militiamen as police officers and chose not confront the militias. We have reached this point where the militias are a legitimate force in the street.” ...”

All I can say is don’t believe everything you read on the internet, especially when it’s from a blog that quotes the British ‘newspaper’, the Guardian. It is a liberal, left-wing rag that a good conservative like yourself shouldn’t be reading....

Obviously, this ‘battle-hardened’ Guardian reporter knows what he’s on about .....not!!!
Rather than getting out on the streets with British forces in Basra, he (or she) chose to have a conversation with a so-called Iraqi General (quite convenient he didn’t want to be named, eh?), who was most probably a cattle herder, but hey, the Guardian has to back it’s reporting up, I guess!

I read the blog, and I can honestly say that I can in no way identify it with the Basra I know, and I can assure you that i’ve visited Basra more, and for longer than any journalist has, left or right wing. I have never seen or heard of any visits from the Guardian or any one freelancing for them.
I myself, have never engaged with any of the so-called local militias that are apparently vying for power to run the city.

There were no claims that the security situation was ‘improving’, why would there need to be?
To my knowledge, the British didn’t appoint anyone as police officers, this was done by local Iraqi ‘govt.’ When British forces suspected that the police had been infiltrated by militias/terrorists (whatever you want to call them), they sent forces in to confront them which resulted in police stations being razed to the ground....doesn’t sound too much like the British choosing not to confront them to me, eh?

Yes, there has been a rise in militia numbers, but this is representative across Iraq, not just Basra.

Don’t ask me to source what i’ve written above, i’m not an internet trawler, but am a media sceptic, unless I witness something myself...

EVERYBODY uses cellphones in Iraq. You’d have to kill everybody. It would make d@mned unpopular.
One favorite use for ‘em is to phone in tips on terrorists. Iraqis with cellphones are giving them hell.
Another is to detonate IEDs. US convoys run cellphone jammers as part of their IED defenses. Dunno if the Brits do the same.

And apparently using sing kids with cellphones to scout targets is yet another.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.