British troops used an armored vehicle to burst into an Iraqi jail to rescue two soldiers arrested in Basra, the British army said yesterday after clashes that exposed tensions in the southern city.
 
An armored vehicle breached the perimeter wall of the jail in a Basra police station on Monday. When it was discovered that the two undercover soldiers were not there, troops rescued them from a nearby house, Lorimer said.

An Iraqi Government official criticized the British action.

"It is a very unfortunate development that the British forces should try to release their forces the way it happened," Haider al-Ebadi, an adviser to Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari, told a news conference in Baghdad.

The rescue followed rioting in Basra that began, according to police and local officials, when the two men fired on a police patrol. At least two Iraqis were killed in the violence.

The tough British response will further strain ties between Iraqis and British troops, who had maintained relatively good relations with the Shi'ite population of Basra by pursuing a low-profile security policy, unlike their US allies elsewhere.

It could also bolster the popularity of young firebrand Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, whose followers in Basra fiercely oppose the presence of foreign troops in Iraq.

"What the two Britons did was literally international terrorism," said Ali al-Yassiri, an aide to Sadr.

"If the British had condemned this, it would have calmed the situation but instead they came and demanded them back which sets a dangerous precedent."

"From an early stage I had good reason to believe the lives of the two soldiers were at risk," Brigadier John Lorimer, the British commander in Basra, said in a statement yesterday.

He said his concern for the pair increased after he received information they had been handed over to "militia elements."

Britain, which has 8,500 troops in Iraq, said on Sunday it would send more if necessary. British troops have not drawn as much fury as their US allies, but Iraqi police vented their anger in Basra as they inspected damage from the British raid.

"Four tanks invaded the area. A tank cannon struck a room where a policeman was praying," said policeman Abbas Hassan, standing next to mangled cars outside the police station and jail that he said were crushed by British military vehicles. "This is terrorism. All we had was rifles."

Britain's Ministry of Defence initially denied troops had breached the Basra jail wall and said the release of the two soldiers had been "negotiated." It also denied media reports that 150 prisoners had escaped during the jail assault. But Hassan, the Iraqi policeman, said prisoners had got away. "Terrorists escaped. This is a government building. We arrest terrorists," he said.

British Defence Secretary John Reid said the two soldiers were freed when negotiations appeared blocked. "What happened yesterday was that two of our servicemen were arrested by Iraqi police and under the law as it stands they should have been handed back to the military authorities."

Reid said the Iraqi Interior Ministry and local judges had asked the police to follow that procedure.

However, Ebadi appeared to deny that the Interior Ministry had been involved. "To my knowledge it was not dealt with centrally from Baghdad," he said.

Furious crowds pelted British armored vehicles with rocks and petrol bombs after the incident in which the British undercover soldiers were said to have fired on Iraqi police.

(China Daily September 21, 2005)