British troops attack Iraqi police station in Basra

By Marc Santora
International Herald Tribune
Dec. 27, 2006

BAGHDAD - Hundreds of British soldiers assaulted a police station in the southern city of Basra on Monday, killing seven gunmen, rescuing 127 prisoners and ultimately reducing the facility to rubble.

When British forces eventually gained control of the facility, they found the prisoners being held in conditions that a spokesman, Major Charlie Burbridge, described as "appalling." He said that more than 100 men were crowded into a single 9-meter by 12-meter cell, or 30 feet by 40 feet, with two open toilets, two sinks and just a few blankets spread over the concrete floor.

A significant number showed signs of torture. Some had crushed hands and feet, Burbridge said, while others had cigarette and electrical burns and a significant number had gunshot wounds to their legs and knees.

The discovery of the fetid dungeon added to a string of abuses by the Iraqi security forces, highlighting the continuing struggle to combat the infiltration of the police and army by militias and criminal elements — even in a Shiite city like Basra, where there is no sectarian violence.

As recently as October, the Iraqi government suspended an entire police brigade in Baghdad on suspicion of participation in death squads. The raid Monday also raised echoes of the Baghdad prison run by the Interior Ministry, known as Site 4, which was discovered last November. A human rights report published by the United Nations mission in Iraq found clear evidence of systematic abuse and torture at the prison, where more than 1,400 prisoners were kept.

The focus of the attack was an arm of the local police called the serious crimes unit, which British officials said had been thoroughly infiltrated by criminals and militias who used it to terrorize local residents and violently settle scores with political or tribal rivals.

"The serious crimes unit was at the center of death squad activity," Burbridge said.

A little more than a year ago, British troops had stormed the same building seeking to rescue two British special forces soldiers who had been captured by militants. A mob of 1,000 to 2,000 people gathered in protest, and a video showed boys throwing stones at a burning British armored fighting vehicle parked outside the station. The soldiers, who were being held in a nearby building, were eventually freed.

Although some local officials, including Basra's police chief, publicly condemned the Monday action, local residents privately said they were grateful and painted an image of an organization widely feared for its brutality.

"They are like savage dogs that bite when they are hungry," said one resident, who insisted on anonymity for fear of retribution. "Their evaluation of guilt or innocence is how much money you can pay."

Residents said that people were afraid to challenge them because they were backed by powerful militia groups including the Mahdi Army, which is led by the rebel cleric Moktada al-Sadr, though the extent of his control is unclear.

Burbridge said that the dismantling of the serious crimes unit had been planned for months.

As far back as 2004, he said, there was a growing realization that the police had been widely infiltrated by members of various militia and elements of organized crime. To combat their influence, the British have been trying to cull them from the forces in a campaign called Operation Sinbad, which began in September.

After trying to determine who was fit to serve in the police, the British began outfitting trusted officers with sophisticated identification cards meant to limit the access of impostors to police intelligence, weapons and vehicles.

In late October, gunmen — believed by the British to have been connected to the serious crimes unit — ambushed a mini- bus carrying 17 employees of a new police academy and slaughtered them all. Their mutilated remains were dumped in the Shuaiba area of the city in an effort to intimidate the local population.

"It had simply gone beyond the pale, and it was clear it was time for the serious crimes unit to go," Burbridge said in an interview.

While they had planned to take over the station Monday, British forces had to speed up the operation by several hours. "We received information late last night that the crimes unit was aware this was going to take place, and we received information that the prisoners lives were in danger," Burbridge said.

More than 800 British soldiers, supported by five Challenger tanks and about 40 Warrior fighting vehicles, began their assault early Christmas morning. They were aided by 600 Iraqi soldiers.

The British force faced the heaviest fighting as it made its way through the city, coming under sporadic attacks by rocket-propelled grenades and small- arms fire. Of the seven guerrillas killed, six were gunned down as the unit made its way to the police station.

Upon reaching the station, British troops killed a guard in a watchtower, who had fired on the approaching forces, but there was little other resistance.

The members of the serious crimes unit who had been occupying the building, several dozen according to the British military, fled. The British forces turned over the prisoners to the regular Iraqi police, who put them in a new detention facility.

The two-story building, once used by Saddam Hussein's security forces, was then demolished, in an attempt to remove all traces of the serious crimes unit, Burbridge said.

The entire battle lasted nearly three hours, and no British soldiers were killed. But the streets around the station were littered with bombed-out cars and rubble.

In other violence Monday, at least 10 civilians were killed and 15 wounded when a car bomb exploded in the Jadida neighborhood of Baghdad. In northeastern Baghdad, a suicide bomber with explosives tied to his body blew himself up on a crowded bus, killing two people.