Battle For Basra Continues

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By By KOMO Staff & News Services

Summary

British forces support uprising against Iraqi fighters in the southern Iraq town; Blair promises support for insurgents.

Story Published: Mar 26, 2003 at 4:09 AM PDT

Story Updated: Aug 31, 2006 at 1:00 AM PDT

Battle For Basra Continues
NEAR BASRA, IRAQ - Coalition forces destroyed a column of about 20 Iraqi vehicles that slipped out the besieged southern city of Basra after days of fierce fighting, a British commander said Thursday.

Air Marshall Brian Burridge said he believed the escaping armored column was intent on attacking British forces surrounding the city. "We've come up against some stiff opposition," he told a briefing.

Burridge said, however, many of the vehicles were manned by conscripts and regular army troops that had been rounded up by paramilitary forces loyal to Saddam Hussein to keep them from deserting.

"This isn't a formation that really knows its business," he said. "You are not dealing with forces that can maneuver."

He urged patience in efforts to secure Basra, saying there were still paramilitary forces in the city.

Burridge said British forces had also attacked 11 Iraqi mortar firing positions and some T-55 tanks during fighting around the city.

He said British commandos and U.S. Marines had mostly secured the al-Faw Peninsula near Umm Qasr in southern Iraq and were conducting "mopping up" operations against remaining Iraqi fighters there.

Three wellhead fires had been extinguished but six were still burning, he said.

At the start of the breakout Wednesday, military sources estimated the column at about 120 vehicles, headed southeast along the main road toward Abadan. They said it appeared the Iraqis were using the sandstorm that had blanketed the region to try to sneak away.

It was not clear whether the destruction of the 20 vehicles reported by Burridge left 100 others that had escaped from the city.

British forces have ringed Basra for several days, exchanging artillery fire with forces loyal to Saddam Hussein's regime. The British say they are coming to the defense of Shiite Muslims who rose up in the streets against Saddam Hussein's Sunni Muslim regime on Tuesday.

Basra had been largely quiet Wednesday, after British forces "neutralized" militia fighters who had lobbed mortars at Basra's residents on Tuesday, said Lt. Col. Ronnie McCourt, a spokesman for British forces in the Gulf.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair, speaking in Parliament on Wednesday, promised backing for the insurgents.

"Truthfully, the reports are confused, but we believe there was some limited form of uprising," Blair said. "It is important that we give support to those people in Iraq who are rising up to overthrow Saddam and his deeply repressive regime."

Iraq has denied there was an uprising in Basra.

The unrest came as the British tried to gain control of Basra and relieve the city's trapped civilian population of 1.3 million, which was running out of food and drinking water.

Coalition forces have made no secret of their hopes to spur such uprisings in the strategic southern city.

U.S. warplanes had dropped satellite-guided bombs on central Basra, targeting military sites hidden in civilian buildings, according to British accounts. The Baath Party headquarters was destroyed.

"The bunch of desperadoes who've lived above the law rule the roost in this dictatorship, this regime that Saddam Hussein has been running," McCourt said.

"They're obviously resorting to desperate measures and trying to intimidate the population, and we are making certain that we neutralize them as quickly as possible."

Coalition forces had avoided entering Basra for fear of getting bogged down in urban warfare. But they changed their strategy because of concerns for civilians and tenacious resistance in the city from an estimated 1,000 militia fighters and an unknown number of regular troops.

During the 1991 Gulf War, Basra's Shiites rose up against Saddam's Sunni Muslim regime. Government forces crushed the rebellion, slaughtering thousands across the south.