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Politics : Idea Of The Day -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: IQBAL LATIF who wrote (43860)	3/25/2003 7:46:50 PM
From: IQBAL LATIF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 50167

<<Bloody uprising in Basra By Martin Bentham with the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards near Basra>> Those who were abusing me may find this eye opening and would soon relaise that if Basra falls with Naseriah Baghdad will fall too.. Bloody uprising in Basra By Martin Bentham with the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards near Basra (Filed: 26/03/2003) Iraqi troops fired artillery pieces horizontally into crowds of their own people last night after a civilian uprising in Basra, the second city. Watching British troops encircling the city of 1.3 million people said there were "horrific" scenes. One officer said: "We have seen a large crowd on the streets. The Iraqis are firing artillery at their own people. There will be carnage." Last night Maj Gen Robin Brims, commander of the British forces surrounding Basra, was making plans to move tanks of the 7th Armoured Brigade into the city centre today to help the rebels and try to prevent slaughter. British commanders were cautiously optimistic about a sudden collapse of the Iraqi regime in Basra. Maj Gen Peter Wall, deputy British commander in the Gulf, said planning was going on to exploit the situation, but the cause and extent of fighting in the city was unclear. "This is just the sort of encouraging indication that we have been looking for." An uprising on a large scale could lead to Basra falling without an assault, as the allies have hoped, and prove a turning point in the war. Signs were first reported by British intelligence sources inside the city late yesterday afternoon, after crowds were seen on the streets seeking to overthrow the paramilitary authorities. Western intelligence officials said the trouble started when Ali Hassan al-Majid, one of Saddam Hussein's closest aides, who is in charge of the south, ordered the execution of a Shi'ite Ba'ath party leader. The rebels were later observed by British troops. The Army said its artillery spotting equipment also picked up Iraqi weaponry being fired at short range at targets within Basra. British artillery targeted the Iraqi emplacements, and the Ba'ath party headquarters, home of pro-Saddam forces within the city, was destroyed by laser-guided bombs from US aircraft. Tank commanders from the Black Watch battle group, part of the 7th Armoured Brigade, the Desert Rats, were urgently seeking permission to intervene last night. But British commanders decided to wait for daylight. One officer said: "If we were to go in darkness that is not a good time to be able to identify civilians and distinguish them from people fighting for Saddam. That is not an easy task even in daylight but it will be much easier than when it is dark and difficult to see clearly." The decision to delay intervention disappointed the troops, with several expressing frustration that they were unable to go to the immediate assistance of the protesters. The Black Watch is the nearest British unit to the city, where food and water is reported to be running out. The three remaining battle groups in the Desert Rats were placed on 60 minutes notice to move into Basra. The British military has been desperately hoping for support in Basra to avoid the need for a forced entry to the city. Commanders have been emphasising that they want to win the hearts and minds of local people, something hard to achieve if a town has been hard hit by urban warfare. Baghdad last night denied the reports. "I want to affirm to you that Basra is continuing to hold steadfast," Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, the information minister, told al-Jazeera satellite television. Before news of the uprising, Tony Blair had said the Shi'ite population of Basra would not revolt until they were sure the allies were poised to remove Saddam from power. The Iraqi dictator crushed an uprising there after the last Gulf war, when US and British troops failed to intervene. Mr Blair was speaking on the eve of his visit to Washington to meet President George W Bush. "You cannot expect ordinary Iraqi people who have lived for years under the boot of Saddam and twice before been let down, I'm afraid, by allied forces to be confident that they are able to come out and express their views until they are sure that Saddam has gone," he said. "My message to them is that this time we will not let you down - Saddam and his regime will be removed," added Mr Blair. Early yesterday morning, British forces raided the Ba'ath party headquarters in Az Zubayr, about 10 miles southwest of Basra, killing about 20 Iraqi fighters and seizing a senior Ba'ath politician. Explaining continuing resistance from Iraqi army units in Basra, Gen Wall said he believed many troops had been blackmailed into returning to their units by pro-Saddam forces, including the paramilitary Fedayeen and the Special Security Organisation. "There may have been quite a large proportion who capitulated and fled their positions in the face of the allied advance and were then commandeered, and through the mechanism of threats against their families forced to go back and re-occupy their equipment." The urgent need to enter Basra was underlined when aid agencies warned that a humanitarian crisis was looming, with electricity and water cut off and hospitals out of supplies. Government warehouses were nearly empty. telegraph.co.uk