British Free Soldiers from Iraqi Prison

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The New York Sun

BASRA, Iraq – British armored vehicles broke down the walls of the central jail in this southern city yesterday and freed two British soldiers, allegedly undercover commandos arrested for shooting two Iraqi policemen, witnesses said. But London said the two men were released as a result of negotiations.


The different versions of events came on a chaotic day that raised questions about how much sovereignty Iraqi authorities really were granted when the American-led Coalition Provision Authority handed over power to an interim Iraqi government in the summer of 2004.


The arrests of the two British soldiers yesterday appeared to have been the first real and public test of how far that sovereignty extends. There have been no known incidents of Iraqi authorities arresting American soldiers operating in the Iraqi heartland.


The governor of Basra province, Mohammed al-Waili, condemned the British for raiding the prison, an act he called “barbaric, savage, and irresponsible”.


An Iraqi television cameraman who lives across the street from the Basra jail, Aquil Jabbar, said about 150 Iraqi prisoners fled as British commandos stormed inside and rescued their comrades.


Late yesterday, the Ministry of Defense in London said the two British soldiers were freed after negotiations. A spokesman said he had no information suggesting they were freed as a result of overt military action, but stopped short of denying reports that British armor crashed through the walls of the jail.


According to the BBC, Defense officials insisted they had been talking to the Iraqi authorities to secure the release of the men, but acknowledged a wall was demolished as British forces tried to “collect” the two prisoners.


In other violence in Basra, an Iraqi journalist working for the New York Times was killed after men claiming to be police officers abducted him from his home, the newspaper announced yesterday. Fakher Haider, 38, was found dead in a deserted area on the city’s outskirts yesterday after his abduction late Sunday.


Elsewhere in Iraq yesterday, an estimated 3 million pilgrims – some carrying signs reading “We welcome martyrdom” – jammed the holy city of Karbala for a major Shiite festival in defiance of insurgent declarations of all-out sectarian war.


In Baghdad, an Iraqi court sentenced one of Saddam Hussein’s nephews to life in prison for funding the country’s violent insurgency and bomb-making after a previously unannounced trial. It was the first known trial of any of the former leader’s family.


Militants waged more bloody attacks across the country yesterday, killing 24 police and civilians and wounding 28.


In an Internet posting, Al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi purportedly issued a new vow, promising he would not attack followers of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and other Shiite leaders opposed to Iraq’s American-backed government.


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