- The following Reuters report raises some disturbing questions.
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- Why were undercover British soldiers wearing traditional
Arab headscarves firing at Iraqi police?
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- The incident took place just prior to a major religious
event in Basra.
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- The report suggests that the police thought the British
soldiers looked "suspicious". What was the nature of their mission?
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- Occupation forces are supposesd to be collaborating with
Iraqi authorities. Why did Britsh Forces have to storm the prison using
tanks and armoured vehicles to liberate the British undercover agents?
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- "British forces used up to 10 tanks " supported
by helicopters " to smash through the walls of the jail and free the
two British servicemen."
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- Was there concern that the British "soldiers"
who were being held by the Iraqi National Guard would be obliged to reveal
the nature and objective of their undercover mission?
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- A report of Al Jazeera TV, which preceeded the raid on
the prison, suggests that the British undercover soldiers were driving
a booby trapped car loaded with ammunition. The Al Jazeera report (see
below) also suggests that the riots directed against British military presence
were motivated because the British undercover soldiers were planning to
explode the booby trapped car in the centre of Basra:.
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- [Anchorman Al-Habib al-Ghuraybi] We have with us on the
telephone from Baghdad Fattah al-Shaykh, member of the Iraqi National Assembly.
What are the details of and the facts surrounding this incident?
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- [Al-Shaykh] In the name of God, the merciful, the compassionate.
There have been continuous provocative acts since the day before yesterday
by the British forces against the peaceful sons of Basra. There have been
indiscriminate arrests, the most recent of which was the arrest of Shaykh
Ahmad al-Farqusi and two Basra citizens on the pretext that they had carried
out terrorist operations to kill US soldiers. This is a baseless claim.
This was confirmed to us by [name indistinct] the second secretary at the
British Embassy in Baghdad, when we met with him a short while ago. He
said that there is evidence on this. We say: You should come up with this
evidence or forget about this issue. If you really want to look for truth,
then we should resort to the Iraqi justice away from the British provocations
against the sons of Basra, particularly what happened today when the sons
of Basra caught two non-Iraqis, who seem to be Britons and were in a car
of the Cressida type. It was a booby-trapped car laden with ammunition
and was meant to explode in the centre of the city of Basra in the popular
market.
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- However, the sons of the city of Basra arrested them.
They [the two non-Iraqis] then fired at the people there and killed some
of them. The two arrested persons are now at the Intelligence Department
in Basra, and they were held by the National Guard force, but the British
occupation forces are still surrounding this department in an attempt to
absolve them of the crime. [Al-Ghuraybi] Thank you Fattah al-Shaykh, member
of the National Assembly and deputy for Basra.
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- - Text of report by Qatari Al-Jazeera satellite TV on
19 September (emphasis added)
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- Is this an isolated incident or is part of a pattern?
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- More significantly, have the occupation forces been involved
in similar undercover missions?
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- Syrian TV (Sept 19, 2005) reports the following:
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- Ten Iraqis - seven police commandos, two civilians and
a child - were killed and more than 10 others wounded in the explosion
of two car bombs near two checkpoints in Al-Mahmudiyah and Al-Latifiyah
south of Baghdad while hundreds of thousands of Iraqis were heading towards
the city of Karbala to mark the anniversary of a religious event.
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- And in a significant incident in the city of Basra, which
is also marking the same religious event, Iraqi demonstrators set fire
to two British tanks near a police station after Iraqi police had arrested
two British soldiers disguised in civilian clothes for opening fire on
police. Eight armoured British vehicles surrounded the police station before
the eruption of the confrontations. A policeman at the scene said the two
detained Britons were wearing traditional Iraqi jallabahs [loose cloaks]
and wigs.
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- An indepth independent inquiry should be order by Britain's
House of Commons into the circumstances of this event.
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- - Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research Editor
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- UK Denies Storming Iraqi Jail To Free Soldiers
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- Reuter, 20 September 2005
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- FULL STORY http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200509/s1463925.htm
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- British forces have freed two undercover soldiers from
jail in Basra after a day of rioting in the Iraqi city that was sparked
when the soldiers fired on a police patrol.
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- An Iraqi Interior Ministry official says British forces
stormed the jail using six tanks and that dozens of Iraqi prisoners escaped
during the raid. But Britain's Ministry of Defence says the release of
the two soldiers had been negotiated and it did not believe the prison
had been stormed.
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- "We've heard nothing to suggest we stormed the prison,"
a ministry spokesman said.
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- .....
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- Police and local officials say the two undercover soldiers
were arrested after opening fire on Iraqi police who approached them.
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- They say the men were wearing traditional Arab headscarves
and sitting in an unmarked car.
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- "They were driving a civilian car and were dressed
in civilian clothes when shooting took place between them and Iraqi patrols,"
an official in Basra said.
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- Mohammed al-Abadi, an official in the Basra governorate,
says the two men looked suspicious to police.
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- "A policeman approached them and then one of these
guys fired at him. Then the police managed to capture them," Mr Abadi
said.
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- "They refused to say what their mission was. They
said they were British soldiers and (suggested) to ask their commander
about their mission."
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- FULL STORY http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200509/s1463925.htm
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