British soldiers did a fine job yesterday as they rescued 100 innocent Iraqi prisoners, shot dead seven gunmen and blew up the Jameat police station were the prisoners were being held.
Death squad blown to bits
Aftermath ... squaddie walks over HQ debris.
By TOM NEWTON DUNN
Defence Editor
December 26, 2006
A THOUSAND British troops yesterday freed 100 innocent prisoners and demolished an Iraq death squad’s HQ.
They shot dead seven gunmen before blowing up the hated rebel Jameat police station in Basra.
The raid started at 2am and with the gun battle over by dawn, the Royal Engineers flattened the building — dubbed “The Station of Death” — with a truck-load of explosives.
Commanders hope the operation against the rogue Serious Crimes Unit (SCU) will be a decisive blow on Islamic extremist militias who have plagued Iraq’s second city for two years since infiltrating its elite police units.
Major Charlie Burbridge said: “We identified the Serious Crimes Unit as, frankly, too far gone. Serious crimes is pretty much what it does, not what it prevents. We had to get rid of it.”
Blast ... British troops blow up rebel police station
The unit’s members wore police uniforms but operated outside the law.
Members tortured locals who did not obey them, and demanded protection money from businesses.
The Shia extremists have clashed repeatedly with British troops and have long been suspected of assassinating rivals and secular and Sunni Muslims.
Our forces started to plan the attack months ago after a tip-off suggesting the renegade cops planned to kill 127 illegally detained prisoners.
The ten-hour operation — one of the biggest by UK troops in Basra since it was liberated in April 2003 — involved one seventh of the 7,200 British force in southern Iraq.
As the giant armoured column from 19 Light Brigade led by Challenger II battle tanks neared its target it faced heavy fire from rifles and rocket-propelled grenades.
But a “combat tractor” smashed a hole in a wall and Staffordshire Regiment soldiers in Warrior infantry fighting vehicles poured through as the crooked cops fled.
Once inside, the troops found many prisoners suffering electricity burns and others with crushed hands and feet. Hundreds of files and computers were seized as evidence.
They rigged the building with mines and explosives which, when set off, hurled SCU vehicles into the air and reduced the base to rubble.
Hellhole ... 70 inmates were locked in this cell
Picture: REUTERS
The blitz was sanctioned by Iraqi PM Nuri al-Malaki. A British forces spokesman in Basra dubbed the police station as a “powerful symbol of oppression and corruption”. Special Forces had stormed the station in September 2005 to free two undercover SAS men held hostage there for 12 hours.
And in separate raids last week seven high-ranking members of the SCU were also arrested by troops.
The actions are part of Operation Sinbad, an ongoing drive to try to rid Basra of corruption so British forces can eventually pull out.
Hated ... the HQ in Basra
Picture: REUTERS
As Britain tucked into Christmas celebrations yesterday, Major Burbage said it was “business as usual” for troops. Meanwhile, nine civilians died and 11 were hurt when a car bomb exploded in an open-air market in a mostly Shia district of eastern Baghdad. A suicide bomber exploded on a minibus nearby, killing three.
Another suicide bomber killed three police officers in an attack on a checkpoint in Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province and a stronghold of the Sunni-dominated insurgency.
A curfew was imposed. Some 12,000 police have been killed since the 2003 fall of former tyrant Saddam Hussein.
A suicide bomber blew up at an Iraqi army checkpoint south of Ramadi, and a sniper killed a cop in Samarra, northwest of Baghdad.
thesun.co.uk
Death squad blown to bits
Aftermath ... squaddie walks over HQ debris.
Defence Editor
December 26, 2006
A THOUSAND British troops yesterday freed 100 innocent prisoners and demolished an Iraq death squad’s HQ.
They shot dead seven gunmen before blowing up the hated rebel Jameat police station in Basra.
The raid started at 2am and with the gun battle over by dawn, the Royal Engineers flattened the building — dubbed “The Station of Death” — with a truck-load of explosives.
Commanders hope the operation against the rogue Serious Crimes Unit (SCU) will be a decisive blow on Islamic extremist militias who have plagued Iraq’s second city for two years since infiltrating its elite police units.
Major Charlie Burbridge said: “We identified the Serious Crimes Unit as, frankly, too far gone. Serious crimes is pretty much what it does, not what it prevents. We had to get rid of it.”
Blast ... British troops blow up rebel police station
The unit’s members wore police uniforms but operated outside the law.
Members tortured locals who did not obey them, and demanded protection money from businesses.
The Shia extremists have clashed repeatedly with British troops and have long been suspected of assassinating rivals and secular and Sunni Muslims.
Our forces started to plan the attack months ago after a tip-off suggesting the renegade cops planned to kill 127 illegally detained prisoners.
The ten-hour operation — one of the biggest by UK troops in Basra since it was liberated in April 2003 — involved one seventh of the 7,200 British force in southern Iraq.
As the giant armoured column from 19 Light Brigade led by Challenger II battle tanks neared its target it faced heavy fire from rifles and rocket-propelled grenades.
But a “combat tractor” smashed a hole in a wall and Staffordshire Regiment soldiers in Warrior infantry fighting vehicles poured through as the crooked cops fled.
Once inside, the troops found many prisoners suffering electricity burns and others with crushed hands and feet. Hundreds of files and computers were seized as evidence.
They rigged the building with mines and explosives which, when set off, hurled SCU vehicles into the air and reduced the base to rubble.
Hellhole ... 70 inmates were locked in this cell
Picture: REUTERS
The blitz was sanctioned by Iraqi PM Nuri al-Malaki. A British forces spokesman in Basra dubbed the police station as a “powerful symbol of oppression and corruption”. Special Forces had stormed the station in September 2005 to free two undercover SAS men held hostage there for 12 hours.
And in separate raids last week seven high-ranking members of the SCU were also arrested by troops.
The actions are part of Operation Sinbad, an ongoing drive to try to rid Basra of corruption so British forces can eventually pull out.
Hated ... the HQ in Basra
Picture: REUTERS
As Britain tucked into Christmas celebrations yesterday, Major Burbage said it was “business as usual” for troops. Meanwhile, nine civilians died and 11 were hurt when a car bomb exploded in an open-air market in a mostly Shia district of eastern Baghdad. A suicide bomber exploded on a minibus nearby, killing three.
Another suicide bomber killed three police officers in an attack on a checkpoint in Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province and a stronghold of the Sunni-dominated insurgency.
A curfew was imposed. Some 12,000 police have been killed since the 2003 fall of former tyrant Saddam Hussein.
A suicide bomber blew up at an Iraqi army checkpoint south of Ramadi, and a sniper killed a cop in Samarra, northwest of Baghdad.
thesun.co.uk