Iraqi gunmen shot dead a civilian working for a private security firm in Basra yesterday as British troops again came under attack from rioters frustrated by appalling conditions in the city.
The ambush of a vehicle owned by Global Security, which led to the death of a Nepalese, was the worst incident of a volatile day.
He was shot dead when two or three men signalled his car to stop in central Basra.
Some reports described the victim as a former Gurkha, but the Ministry of Defence said he had never served in the British army.
The weekend trouble has underlined the deep frustration of British military commanders at the failure of the international community to help restore Iraq’s infrastructure.
They regard this as the main cause of rioting in Basra, which started on Saturday.
Violence erupted yesterday when about 1,000 residents protesting at power and fuel shortages burned tyres and hurled rocks at British soldiers.
An Associated Press Television News cameraman claimed to have seen a protester shot dead after a crowd surrounded a group of vehicles, but it was unclear who were in the cars or who fired the shots.
A British army spokesperson said he could not confirm any casualties as a result of the protests, but said British troops had come under attack in a separate incident and had returned fire.
For months British commanders have been urging civilian authorities, including Britain’s Department for International Development, to repair and instal vital equipment in the region.
They are also understood to be annoyed by the failure of the US-led coalition provisional authority to establish a proper programme, which would include private companies, to invest in Iraq’s basic infrastructure.
”The military are very irritated with the department of international development and civilian agencies,” said a defence official.
British soldiers are having to deal with civilian as well as security tasks. ”But the military are not all things to all people”, said a defence source.
The trouble in Iraq’s second city began on Saturday when soldiers were forced to don riot gear and fire baton rounds at crowds who set fire to a Kuwaiti tanker truck and Kuwaiti registered cars.
People accuse Kuwaitis of conniving in the smuggling of oil out of Iraq. But with temperatures rising above 50C helping to inflame the situation, the rioting also turned into a protest at what people see as a failure by the British to improve basic services after toppling Saddam Hussein.
”There is a large presence just to be sure that people understand that we take security very seriously,” said British army spokesperson Major Charlie Mayo.
”The root cause of the problem is power,” he said yesterday. ”It started because people have been pulling down the power lines to steal the copper. By pulling down the lines no power is going out to the power station or the oil refinery where the petrol and the diesel is made.
”Linked to the whole thing is that the infrastructure is 1970s technology that has had little or no maintenance. I do not think you can do a quick fix.”
Asked if that meant the rioting was likely to continue indefinitely, he said: ”I could not say. We know the governor in chief had been on television to try and get across to the people that this is not helping, while tribal sheiks have been seen out with British troops trying to calm the situation.”
One move that could help with supplies is that Basra’s international airport should be opened for civilian traffic by the end of the month, defence sources said. – Guardian Unlimited Â