Iraq police militants 'must go'

BBC
Sep. 21, 2005

"Rogue elements" in Iraq's police force must be rooted out, the head of the multi-national force in Basra has said.
Colonel Bill Dunham's comments came after the British army said it had to rescue two soldiers arrested in Basra and handed to Shia militants by police.

UK Defence Secretary John Reid and Iraqi prime minister Ibrahim Jaafari are in London discussing the tensions.

Meanwhile, Iraq's interior minister has disputed the UK military's account of how it freed the soldiers on Monday.

Baqir Solagh Jabr told BBC News the men never left police custody or the prison building in Basra and were not handed to militants.

He said the British army acted on "rumour" when it stormed the prison looking for them.

The Army says it rescued the soldiers from a house in Basra where they were taken by militants after the police ignored an order from the interior ministry to release them.

The Iraqi government has launched an inquiry into events surrounding the arrest of the soldiers, both thought to be members of the SAS elite special forces.

Iraq's national security advisor, Muwafaq al-Rubaie has admitted security forces and police in "many parts of Iraq" had been penetrated by insurgents.

He told the BBC's Newsnight programme Iraq now had "a very scrupulous, very meticulous vetting procedure" to "clean our security forces, as well as stop any penetration in future from the insurgents or the terrorists".

He conceded he did not know the extent of the infiltration.

But he criticised the use of force in British operation to free the captured soldiers, saying: "They could have been freed in a much more peaceful, much more friendly and amicable way than that."

Tory MP Desmond Swayne, a territorial army officer who has served in Iraq, welcomed the recognition that the police had been infiltrated, saying: "We did all know it was going on.

"There has to be a much more concerted effort to purge the security forces and to ensure that they are properly trained."

Mazin Younis, chairman of the Iraqi League in Britain, described Monday's operation as a "mess".

He told BBC News: "We are an occupying force in Basra. We took authority. We have been there enjoying a couple of years of quiet, no insurgency.

"There wasn't a single reconstruction project in Basra. People... put a lot of faith in us. But we offered them nothing, absolutely nothing. And now we have started dealing with them as an enemy."

Journalists killed

Separately, an Iraqi journalist with national newspaper As Safeer has been shot dead in Mosul.

The death of the paper's Mosul bureau chief, Firas Maadidi, comes two days after the killing of his female colleague, reporter Hind Ismaeel.

On Monday, Iraqi journalist Fakher Haidar al-Tamimi was shot dead in the southern city of Basra.

Mr Tamimi worked for several foreign news agencies, including US daily The New York Times.