Iraqi militia targets fleeing families
thescotsman.co.uk
The crowd was halfway across the concrete and steel bridge when the mortar rounds started falling on the Basra side. Men, women and children screamed as they ran to escape Iraqi machine-gun fire.
A thousand people, maybe more, ran for their lives. A young woman fell, hit by shrapnel as a pick-up truck broke cover and charged forward, the machine-gun mounted on its roof spewing bullets at the crowd.
On the British side, a tank lurched forward, the gunner training his sights on the truck a few hundred yards ahead. One shot and the truck was blown apart, the three people in it killed in an instant.
Around the British positions, mortar shells were falling, the Black Watch firing back.
The crowd had made it safely across the bridge, hands raised as they ran towards the troops, ducking for cover as the British guns moved round to cover their escape.
They began moving along the road in the direction of Az Zubayr. They may take shelter there or camp out in the countryside around.
A young woman, badly hurt, was plucked to safety by a British vehicle and driven back across the lines. Others were also injured and medics rushed to tend their wounds.
Then came the clatter of rotor blades and two Lynx helicopters appeared, hovering over to the right, just visible between the concrete pillars holding up the bridge. They hung in the air for what seemed an age before releasing their missiles, guiding them into the target on the other side of the canal, then tilting and peeling away.
On the Iraqi side of the Shatt al-Basra canal, the missiles struck two positions manned by the Saddam Fedayeen, the militia who were holding out in the besieged city.
In the turret of his Warrior armoured vehicle, Lieutenant Colonel Mike Riddell-Webster, the commanding officer of the Black Watch, raced back to the British positions on the west side of the bridge. Its radio crackling with reports from his unit, the Warrior rattled to a halt.
The crowd had appeared at about 8am, he said, clearly desperate to flee the city. British tanks had held them at the far bank before the decision was taken to let them cross.
"We gave permission for them to come through, but there was no firing then," he said. "The people were overjoyed when we let them through, they were blowing kisses and waving their hands in thanks. As they came across the bridge, the Iraqis opened up with 50mm mortar fire. The intent was clearly to stop their own people moving across.
"Then a pick-up with a machine-gun mounted on the back came down the road and opened fire on our troops and the civilians. The machine gun was firing into the crowd. One of our tanks fired back and destroyed it, and the three people inside it. Any time we moved between our vehicles, more fire came in, hitting the vehicles.
"One of our lads had a bullet rip through his smock, which was a bit close. They wanted to get out and away. Most are heading for Az Zubayr and the farms around there, but they are not really aware of what is going on in the town so many of them will camp out in the fields.
"They want to get away but when they came across the bridge, they had their hands up. They were scared of us as well. They don’t know what is going on, but they are more scared of the Baath Party."
On the far side of the bridge were 200 or more civilians who could not get shelter on either side of the road, terrified of moving in case they came under fire. Behind them, huge plumes of black smoke drifted eastwards from the fire pits filled with oil lit by the Iraqi defenders. Across a flat landscape, there was a smell of burning oil in the air.
Inside the British compound, Warrior armoured vehicles kept their guns trained on the opposite bank, but the Iraqi guns had fallen silent. Lines started to move back across the bridge again in both directions, people coming back from Az Zubayr passing those determined to get out of Basra at the centre of the span where a British Warrior stood guard.
A Challenger tank rumbled past, heading over towards Basra and covering the Iraqi positions with its weapons.
In a sand-bagged observation post littered with spent bullet cases at the edge of the bridge, Major Lindsay MacDuff had been watching the break-out.
As forward air controllers guided the helicopters in towards their targets, he recalled that it was the second time the Iraqis had opened fire on their own people trying to escape the city.
The militia have been there for days, he said, niggling away at the British positions, using maybe eight vehicles, with mortars and machine guns mounted on the back, each manned by two or three men.
Major MacDuff said: "Yesterday afternoon, we were about to do a raid and there was a log-jam of people coming over the bridge and the Iraqis fired mortars at us and at the civilians, but this is the first time they have just tried to target the civilians alone. Their ability to get the rounds where they want them to is more than just down to chance so they are clearly aiming at them.
"We can shelter in our vehicles but we can’t get all the civilians in. You can’t get 200 people in the back of a Warrior. We’ve heard of direct fire being used to shoot civilians leaving Basra, which is a worrying trend."
Major MacDuff has been camped out on the edge of Basra for five days, organising raids designed to sap the resistance of the gunmen and encourage the civilian population to rise up against the Iraqi regime. Last night, it increasingly appeared that this was not going to happen without significantly more pressure.
Major MacDuff said the civilian population was eager for the British troops to enter the city, but too scared of the Iraqi regime to take action: "The message coming across is that they are unhappy about life in Basra and they are keen for us to come in and help them, which we are keen on doing.
"But the difficulty is that the conditions for us going into Basra haven’t yet been achieved. We’re keen to go in but we haven’t got the orders to go."
Major MacDuff said even those who want the British to enter the city are facing terrible pressure from the Iraqi authorities to continue the resistance.
He said: "One man came up to us and told us that if we didn’t let him through he would be shot, but the next day we saw him with an AK47 taking action against us, so the pressure they are under is clear to see. Tribal elders are being coerced into taking action against us with the help of a gun to the head or the promise of money. The problem is fear and the regime is working on fear.
"I’m not sure what makes people collectively take the decision that it is time to take action themselves. I think their understanding of what we are is jaundiced because the only understanding they get is through the regime."
The British are using interpreters to try to explain their position to those moving into and out of the city and they hope that the activity against the militia forces is sending out the same message.
Major MacDuff said: "I was talking to the CO about setting up an aid post here to give them food and water but they would just be a target for fire. So until we can make it safe we can’t do it."
In London, the Chief of the General Staff, General Mike Jackson, said British forces were making progress in wearing down resistance from Saddam’s forces in the south of Iraq.
He insisted: "The Iraqi forces in the south are fixed, by that we mean they are pinned down - their ability to manoeuvre is very limited indeed."
However, a British military spokesman in Iraq, Colonel Chris Vernon, said Basra was "nowhere near yet in our hands". He added: "We have no way at the moment of getting humanitarian aid into Basra.
"But as we begin to pressurise Basra and begin to dominate it militarily, it is fixed in military terms. Nothing can move in or out militarily. The key to Basra is to eradicate the Baath Party control and the irregular forces under their control, so the lid is taken off the people." |
