British tactics in Southern Iraq were under review on Sunday night as military chiefs studied whether the dramatic loss of an army helicopter at the weekend signified a new vulnerability in the air, as well as a growing hostility from Iraqis on the ground.
Military investigators were combing the charred wreckage of a Lynx in central Basra, seeking to establish if it was the first British helicopter to be shot down since the invasion three years ago. The ministry of defence said a ”maximum of five” British personnel were on board, but had yet to confirm a death toll.
The Lynx is the workhorse of the British army and as the roads of Iraq have become ever more treacherous the British military is using them routinely. The ministry of defence has yet to confirm what brought the Lynx down on Saturday, but if, as Iraqi police say, it was hit by fire from the ground, it would demonstrate a new level of vulnerability for British troops.
Yet just as alarming for the British deployment in Southern Iraq were the scenes that followed. British forces have confronted angry Iraqi crowds before, but on this occasion the 300 men gathered at the crash site were jubilant at the loss of the helicopter and ready to inflict further damage. As soldiers from the British army’s Quick Reaction Force got to the scene, they were confronted by stones thrown from the crowd. A minority, chanted support for the Mehdi army, the militia of the radical Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, and was armed with assault rifles, rocket-propelled grenades and petrol bombs, British defence sources said.
After initially using batons against the crowd, some of the soldiers opened fire. According to Iraqi police, four or five Iraqis were killed, including at least one child. British soldiers said they believed the Iraqis were killed by mortars fired by the Mehdi army, but British defence sources admitted later that the dead Iraqis might have been shot by British troops.
Neither the British nor the Iraqi dead have been named, though families of the British victims were informed on Sunday. Basra residents said the jubilation at British misfortune stemmed from the city’s descent into misery — and warned that such confrontation was likely to recur. ”The miserable situation in Basra and the south definitely had a role in the buildup of events,” said Abu Ali, a Basra resident.
”Electricity is absent for most of the day and gasoline is very expensive. Ordinary people can never get a job at the state security forces because it is entirely controlled by the militias. People think those who used to live abroad came and controlled everything while the common citizens still cannot get basic life needs.”
Ibtihal Jasim (51) said she was worried that the British, regarded in Basra as restrained in dealing with crowds, had opened fire, albeit with only a few shots. ”What happened here has startled Basra. I’m afraid that these incidents will develop because the British responded. This is frightening,” she told Reuters.
According to Major General John Cooper, commander of the British forces in Iraq, troops did not fire directly into the crowds, but fired live rounds at targets threatening them. A commander of the Mehdi Army, Jassan Khalaf, was reported on Sunday as saying that his men brought down the helicopter and threatened more attacks. Some British officers have expressed serious concern about the increasing influence and control of the Mehdi Army on Basra’s streets.
The mood was scarcely improved by reports of the day’s carnage elsewhere in Iraq: A volley of car bombs in Baghdad and Kerbala that killed 30 and wounded 50. Late last night, another bomb exploded in a restaurant in Muqdadiya, 96km north-east of Baghdad, injuring dozens.
Calm was restored in Basra after about five hours and a night curfew imposed.
British defence sources emphasised that order was restored with the help of Iraqi security forces, in contrast to an incident in Basra last September, when troops were set on fire as they escaped from burning Warrior armoured vehicles attacked by petrol bombs. ”Just a matter of months ago it would have been unthinkable that the domestic forces of Iraq would have been able to make the contribution that they made yesterday [Sunday],” the new Defence Secretary, Des Browne, said.
Basra’s Governor, Muhammad al-Waeli, agreed on Sunday to resume cooperation with the British, which he broke off four months ago, in an effort to defuse tension.
The Liberal Democrats described the deaths as ”appalling” and called for a ”clear exit strategy” for British forces from the area. The shadow Defence Minister, Liam Fox, said: ”This incident raises a number of questions about the state of our airmen, which I am keen to pursue with the new secretary of state as soon as possible.”
Lynx helicopters are equipped with radar and jamming devices designed to counter the threat from heavy artillery, not from small arms. Military commanders are urgently reviewing how to cut the risk of their being fired upon from well-armed insurgents on the ground.
Major Charles Heyman, defence analyst and editor of The Armed Forces of the United Kingdom publication, said the situation in Basra worsened when US forces began to confront Moqtada al-Sadr 18 months ago, announcing they would take him ”dead or alive”.
He said: ”The situation in Basra has not changed overnight. Something like today’s crash, and then large numbers of soldiers on the streets, triggers an underlying resentment that our troops are basically occupying forces.”
Under fire
Aside from roadside blasts and ambushes that have killed most of the 109 British troops who have died in Iraq, British forces have been drawn into several confrontations in southern Iraq during the occupation.
2003
June: Six military policeman cornered in a police station and murdered by a mob in Majar al-Kabir, north of Basra.
August: Three soldiers killed when a group of men in a truck opened fire on their vehicle in central Basra.
2004
March: 14 British soldiers hurt in Amara, near Basra, when hundreds of Iraqis threw stones and petrol bombs in riot over job shortages.
May: British troops involved in two days of fighting against militants loyal to the Shia cleric Moqtada Sadr near Basra.
August: Two British soldiers killed in separate incidents involving gunfights with insurgents in Basra.
2005
September: Iraqi mob torches British warrior armoured vehicle and fires mortars at British base after British tanks demolish a police station to free two undercover soldiers.
2006
May: British Lynx military helicopter shot down in Basra, killing as many as five servicemen. Five Iraqis killed and dozens hurt in subsequent clash between troops and Iraqi crowds. – Guardian Unlimited Â