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BAGHDAD/LONDON (Reuters) - British forces returned on Saturday to an Iraqi town where gunmen killed six British troops, as U.S. forces facing now daily attacks blamed on Saddam Hussein loyalists reported another soldier killed. U.S. forces also found the bodies of two missing soldiers who had gone missing on Wednesday in central Iraq, home to the country's minority Sunni Muslims and Saddam's former stronghold. The British force of 500 troops sent to Majjar met a delegation of Shi'ite Muslim clerics and local dignitaries in the town where six British military police were killed on Tuesday, the Defense Ministry in London...

Demonstrators protest through the streets of Amara, Iraq, Saturday June 28, 2003, in support of British troops, and against the recent killing of British military police in the town of Majar al-Kabir. Six British military police were killed in the nearby village of Majar al-Kabir June 24. Troops have not re-entered Majar al-Kabir since the killings.(AP Photo/Denis Doyle)

The British military has ordered a suspension of weapons searches in the area of southern Iraq where six soldiers were killed, while a fundamental review takes place of the civilian population's right to carry arms. The Army has agreed to a two-month "cooling-off" period in the town of Majar al-Kabir, near Amara, and this may be extended to other areas in an effort to defuse the rise in anti-British sentiment. There is acknowledgement among defence staff that a lack of understanding of the local people contributed to the fatal confrontation on Tuesday in which six members of the Royal Military...

<p>MAJAR AL-KABIR, Iraq &#8212; Iraqi civilians, furious over intrusive searches for weapons in their homes, were responsible for the fatal shooting of six British soldiers, residents said yesterday.</p> <p>The bloodshed was prompted by a protest fraught with tension.</p> <p>Residents of Majar al-Kabir said four Iraqis were killed and 14 were wounded in the clashes Tuesday.</p>

Four of six British soldiers killed in a southern Iraqi town were executed after they surrendered following a fierce gun battle, British newspapers reported, as Prime Minister Tony Blair ruled out sending more troops to the country.The British military policemen mounted a last stand Tuesday at a police station in Al-Majar Al-Kabir, around 200 kilometres (120 miles) north of Iraq's second city of Basra, and were killed, possibly with their own weapons, after they refused to flee, papers said.Most British newspapers, which carried the story of the deaths on their front pages, said the sequence of events was still...

MAJAR AL-KABIR, Iraq - British forces gave civilian leaders in this town 48 hours to hand over gunmen who killed six military policemen after a violent demonstration that left four Iraqi civilians dead, a municipal official said Wednesday. The ultimatum came a day after Iraqi gunmen — enraged by the deaths of their countrymen at the hands of British soldiers — killed two British military policemen during the demonstration and then stormed a police station, killing four more, local police and witnesses said. "We hope that we'll be able to bring those who are guilty of these attacks to justice,"...

Gun battle started after 'soldiers killed unarmed demonstrators' AP 25 June 2003 British forces gave civilian leaders in the southern Iraq town of Majar al-Kabir 48 hours to hand over gunmen who killed six British military police officers, a municipal official said today. British military officials met seven members of the city's administrative council in the nearby town of Amarah, seeking the killers' surrender, said Qassem Nimeh, an official in the mayor's office in Majar al-Kabir. There were contradiictory versions of what sparked the shooting. Local police said today that residents of the small township, furious over the deaths of...

<p>BAGHDAD &#8212; Six British soldiers were killed in a police station in southern Iraq and eight were wounded in a nearby ambush yesterday, marking the deadliest day of attacks on coalition forces since the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime.</p> <p>The casualties were a shock to British troops occupying the largely Shi'ite south, which until now had been essentially free of the daily hit-and-run attacks plaguing American soldiers in central and western Iraq. British troops felt so secure they have been patrolling the country's second-largest city, Basra, without flak jackets or helmets.</p>

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The main question asked in the urgent review of British "standard operating procedures" in Iraq will be why six soldiers were left to face rioting Iraqis on their own. It will also examine whether the recent decision to begin withdrawing two-thirds of the British troops was correct and whether or not it continues to be safe for them to walk around in their berets without full body armour. But the main issue will centre around how six soldiers more used to policing than fighting came to be shot dead by civilians when better-armed troops had already been forced to withdraw...

MAJJAR, Iraq (Reuters) - Iraqis said on Wednesday that anger over weapons searches in private homes triggered the killing of six British soldiers and the wounding of eight others in clashes around this southern Shi'ite town this week. But a British military spokesman in Iraq, Lieutenant-Colonel Ronnie McCourt, said the killing of the six military police in Majjar on Tuesday was unprovoked, adding: "It was murder."

Six UK soldiers killed in Iraq were shot by civilians after weapons searches in homes turned into a bloody showdown, according to residents. And Prime Minister Tony Blair told the Commons tension between British troops and Iraqis reluctant to disarm could have led to the killings. The soldiers' deaths could lead to the deployment of thousands of extra troops to Iraq as an urgent review of troop numbers, tactics and equipment gets under way. British commanders in Iraq described the deaths as "unprovoked murder" and were searching for the killers. Mr Blair paid tribute to the dead soldiers, saying they...

Three of the six British soldiers killed in Iraq were executed after surrendering their weapons, it was claimed today. The Royal Military Police officers, a sergeant and five corporals, were shot dead after trying to quell a demonstration of Shi'ite Muslims in the town of Majar al Kabir yesterday. The account of a local man, who tried to save the life of the sergeant in charge of the patrol, backs up Lieutenant Colonel Ronnie McCourt who said today: "This attack was unprovoked. It was murder." Two of the men died when shooting broke out as the military policemen faced a...