British troops break into Iraqi detention center

[Lord Kelvin]

At least that's the impression that I'm getting here.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/09/19/iraq.main/index.html

If I'm reading this right, why didn't the British just talk to the Iraqi officials and arrange for them to release the two British Marines instead of busting down a wall and breaking them out? Not to mention losing an armored vehicle and a personnel carrier in the process.

[Toastar]

shows that they take that kind of thing serious and the british soldier will be happy to know they'd be willing to sacrafice those to get them out

[Lord Kelvin]

Yeah, but still, couldn't they have just asked? I don't think a couple days of bureaucratic red tape is worth the time, effort, two lost vehicles, injuries, and humilation they traded instead. But that's just me.

[DunNa]

The two brits shot some civi's and a traffic cop, then the brit army comes and trys to take them from the police station? That sounds really wierd. Then the iraqis used firebombs or something and rocks. That shit is just confusing as hell.

What kind of prison keeps firebombs on hand? I'm thinking that iraqi civis got pissed that the brits were released and started attacking them, because it didn't say anything about the brits getting shot. Unless ofcource Iraqi prisons keep rocks and firebombs instead of guns.

[BlindSite]

How do we know their cover wasn't blown and their lives were in danger? We don't really know the full story here. Lets not make assumptions..

[FaKToR]

Depending how this plays out, it makes you wonder what Iraqi sovereignty is exactly.

[M123]

Some things I'm wondering about:
What for secret stuff were those two guys doing? Why did the British crash a tank into a prison? Why were people with molotov coctails there?

[kreket]

According to this

http://www.aftenposten.no/nyheter/uriks/irak/article1118576.ece

there was a good size of 150 prisoners that took the opportunity to run for it.

I know most of you can't read what is on that link, but there is a picture of a burning brit (who only took minor injuries) to make up for it. Never leave home without kevlar I guess.

It also says that no british commandos were actually saved because they were kept elsewhere and in a process of being released by the government itself. So it was all in vain and they now got skin conditions of burnmarks in addition to the waste of goodwill and equipment.


How easy is it to make a molotov cocktail?

[siddy]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov-cocktail

pretty much gasoline, a glass bottle and a wick of some sort.

[Modest Genius]

its all a bit weird. i cant really comment with the pathetic amount of knowledge i actually have of the incident, its all a bit hush-hush

[HarryB]

Personally I don't get it.

Hi, we're here to protect you and stabilize your government but you have two of our commandos who you say have shot some police so we're going to drive a tank through your prison's wall instead of asking about them. Don't mind us.

What the hell is the Iraqi government suppost to think about this if it's ok to jail the enemy, but if you jail an ally's troops they'll break them out?

[The WOOO Meister]

Something's funny, and not in the ha-ha sense.

[GoatChomper]

Never leave home without kevlar I guess.
Kevlar provides no protection from flame.....perhaps you meant Nomex.

[FaKToR]

I don't think they mind having something in between their skin and the fire.

[GoatChomper]

That depends. If it's a petroleum-based cloth like polyester, that would be even worse than a high-dernier cotton weave or even bare skin once it melts into you.

[FaKToR]

Yeah but we're talking about kevlar here:
Kevlar is very heat resistant and decomposes above 400 °C without melting.

[Kak]

This is probably scaring the crap out of the Iraqi government. Here they thought they were a sovereign nation and have detained two criminals. Then they are forcefully broken out of prison by a foreign nation that is supposed to be there to help them.

The British government has some explaining to do, otherwise this confusion will cause widespread distrust and the feeling that foreign governments are undermining the national government.

[Lord Kelvin]

More on the situation:

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/09/21/iraq.britain/index.html

Seems that there was a reason for the break-in.

[SWATJester_os]

The Interior Ministry contacted the Basra governor to release the two detainees because they had received confirmation that they were British soldiers and there were negotiations to secure their release.

There the Iraqi and multinational versions of the story diverge, al-Rubaie said.

"The multinational forces said when they arrived at the police station the soldiers were moved to the private residence of a militia leader.

"Our story is that this is an annex to the police station and used for detaining people, hence the British troops went into that location and freed them."

When it was discovered the two men were not in the jail, they were rescued from a nearby house, Brigadier John Lorimer said.

Lorimer added that it was of "deep concern" the men detained by police were later handed over to Shiite militia.

Iraqi police said members of Iraq's Mehdi Army militia engaged the British forces around the facility, burning one personnel carrier and an armored vehicle.

Video showed dozens of Iraqis surrounding British armored vehicles and tossing gasoline bombs, rocks and other debris at them.

Mehdi's Army is one of the more dangerous Shiite militia groups....We were engaging in firefights with them as far back as December 2003, and by "WE" I mean my unit.

So the police arrested these suspicious characters, checked their id, found them to be soldiers, then gave them to a militia army known for killing soldiers?

GJ Brits, glad you got your guys back. Now go find the IP in charge of the jail, and throw him in prison for the rest of his life.

[Lord Kelvin]

Those were SAS troops, it seemed, not Marines as the first story stated. Perhaps their special mission had something to do with why they were busted out so quickly?

[HodgeMASHEEN MkIII]

Why were the two SAS operatives arrested in the first place?

[Lord Kelvin]

The story said that they were stopped at a checkpoint, and fired at the officers because they suspected that something was up with the ones who stopped them, something about how the insurgents are compromising the police forces of the country.

[Prowl]

This is probably scaring the crap out of the Iraqi government. Here they thought they were a sovereign nation and have detained two criminals. Then they are forcefully broken out of prison by a foreign nation that is supposed to be there to help them.

The British government has some explaining to do, otherwise this confusion will cause widespread distrust and the feeling that foreign governments are undermining the national government.

I'm sorry, this is Iraq isnt it? The country your government invaded without a UN mandate, where your troops committed the abu graib fiasco and you criticise our troops for trying to rescue 1 SAS soldiers who have been handed over to the bloody mehdi army??

I don't want my troops in the country at all, but if they are gonna be there then I don't want to see a single one of them be tortured or executed by no stinking militant iraqis. :mad: Whatever British troops or US troops do to defend themselves is fine in my book. Thats not politics, thats looking after your young soldiers.

[kreket]

Up until I read your post Swat, I thought the soldiers that were transferred to a militia might have been transferred away from an unsecure location (the prison being a place to fill up with insurgents and the occasional live terrorist) to a friendly base.

Are there any sources for this group being the one your unit had firefights with? You've convinced me if there is.

Edit: spelling and improvement.

[Lord Kelvin]

I'm sorry, this is Iraq isnt it? The country your government invaded without a UN mandate, where your troops committed the abu graib fiasco and you criticise our troops for trying to rescue 1 SAS soldiers who have been handed over to the bloody mehdi army??

I don't want my troops in the country at all, but if they are gonna be there then I don't want to see a single one of them be tortured or executed by no stinking militant iraqis. :mad: Whatever British troops or US troops do to defend themselves is fine in my book. Thats not politics, thats looking after your young soldiers.

Well, now we know a bit more. From what the second story says, I think the police in that area were infiltrated by the insurgents, and that's one of the reasons that the British busted in so quickly. But it probably also has something to do with the sensitivity of the mission those two SAS soldiers were doing.

[SWATJester_os]

Up until I read your post Swat, I thought the soldiers that were transferred to a militia might have been transferred away from an unsecure location (the prison being a place to fill up with insurgents and the occasional live terrorist) to a friendly base.

Are there any sources for this group being the one your unit had firefights with? You've convinced me if there is.

Edit: spelling and improvement.

Yes, but you'll have to wait until the orders become unclassified. I'll dig through my old intel briefs, but I don't think there's anything that I could show you. Mehdi's army is definately the group we had firefights with, so if that's for sure them (which it sounds like it is), then there you go. I'm FAR from the only unit that ever engaged in firefights with them.

[GoatChomper]

I'm sorry, this is Iraq isnt it? The country your government invaded.....
Yours, too.
.....without a UN mandate.....
Which has proven to guarantee only a stalemate.
.....where your troops committed the abu graib fiasco.....
Oh, fer fuck's sake.....that has zero to do with this incident, and you know that. Anybody who'd wave that Blutfahne as an exculpation for handing them over to the Mehdi faction should be looked at most askance.

[Lord Kelvin]

Aaaaaaand... now more on the story:

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/09/24/iraq.basra.ap/index.html

It seems now that the British troops were in the custody of militiamen. But that still doesn't answer the questions of why they shot at the policemen in the first place, why the British broke them out so quickly, or what their mission was.

[Kak]

I'm sorry, this is Iraq isnt it? The country your government invaded without a UN mandate, where your troops committed the abu graib fiasco and you criticise our troops for trying to rescue 1 SAS soldiers who have been handed over to the bloody mehdi army??

I don't want my troops in the country at all, but if they are gonna be there then I don't want to see a single one of them be tortured or executed by no stinking militant iraqis. :mad: Whatever British troops or US troops do to defend themselves is fine in my book. Thats not politics, thats looking after your young soldiers.
What the hell dude, I was and still am completely against the invasion of Iraq. When I typed up that post, it was more criticism of American and British actions, rather than just British. We've done plenty of worse shit than this.

I typed that post with everything that was known about the incident at the time. Nobody was saying anything, all that was being said was this:
UK non-uniformed personell shot Iraqi policemen and were put in prison, the the UK army assaults the prison with armor and breaks them out.

I typed that post with the information that was at hand. Obviously it's obsolete now that the real story has been released.

I don't think what you said to me was fair. Slamming a post I made right after the incident occured with facts that were released at a later date or had not circulated to American news. And then you tried adding leverage to it by stating things that the American government has done, which I am well aware of an opposed to as a democrat. I did not appreciate this. :(

[Prowl]

sorry for making it seem a personal attack on you, it was in fact an attack on your post. It was evident even on yahoo news that there was a very high degree of risk attached to our guys being held captive by any militia. After seeing the Nick Berg video I really REALLY do not like the idea of having any of our people taken captive.

P.S. hey Goat, nice to see we can still disagree on most everything :D

[Kak]

Yeah knowing all that is known now my post is completely invalid, but at the time of my post it was thought that two British guys killed an Iraqi cops and was put in an Iraqi government prison (like in any other country) then were broken by the UK military.

You guys probably had more information about it in the UK but over here on the news that's all that was being said. All I really meant to say was "The UK government has some explaining to do", as what was known was really wierd information. They now did explain, and it's a valid explination.

[Col.Kurtz]

Yours, too.

Which has proven to guarantee only a stalemate.

Oh, fer fuck's sake.....that has zero to do with this incident, and you know that. Anybody who'd wave that Blutfahne as an exculpation for handing them over to the Mehdi faction should be looked at most askance.


well put sir.

not to say all iraqi police are all bad, but im sure there are some who are less then, savory i guess who would easy take adavantage of snatching up 2 british under cover agents, they probly thought they'd get away with it. and what with the bs about one of them having a canadian gun? what the hell does that have to do with it, most those police units have shit from china,does that mean they're with the chinese? no.

[Col.Kurtz]

Yeah knowing all that is known now my post is completely invalid, but at the time of my post it was thought that two British guys killed an Iraqi cops and was put in an Iraqi government prison (like in any other country) then were broken by the UK military.

You guys probably had more information about it in the UK but over here on the news that's all that was being said. All I really meant to say was "The UK government has some explaining to do", as what was known was really wierd information. They now did explain, and it's a valid explination.


hmm looks like someone let there ideas on how they hate the iraq war influence what they said, but it turns out that the brits were doing their job. and you let our shit baised news here get the best of you.


im glad to see the brits got their 2 guys in a quick and effect manner, and this action will definatly raise moral for our guys over there.

[Lord Kelvin]

hmm looks like someone let there ideas on how they hate the iraq war influence what they said, but it turns out that the brits were doing their job. and you let our shit baised news here get the best of you.


im glad to see the brits got their 2 guys in a quick and effect manner, and this action will definatly raise moral for our guys over there.
The problem here is that there's more than one side to that. On one side, they rescued the two guys from, if I read the news right, a militiaman's house. On the other hand, you've got this incident where the British attacked a building that belongs to the people who are supposed to uphold the law in the area, possibly injuring and/or killing one or more people (I can't remember the exact numbers). Although it's good that the two soldiers are safe, they still attacked a police building.

[Kak]

hmm looks like someone let there ideas on how they hate the iraq war influence what they said, but it turns out that the brits were doing their job. and you let our shit baised news here get the best of you.


im glad to see the brits got their 2 guys in a quick and effect manner, and this action will definatly raise moral for our guys over there.
Read all the posts in this thread prior to my original statement. What I said was based on the only information that was released at the time, and that's what everyone who posted before me was using. This isn't some kind of case of "biased news" trying to make things sound bad without giving the full facts, nobody had any idea what was going on. It all sounded really bad, which is why the British government had some explaining to do.

Sure I was against the invasion of Iraq and the war, but I'm not one of those people that think we need to withdraw our troops from the country right away like that loony Sheehan lady. I don't really see how my post seemed influenced by me views of the war. In fact Prowl mistaked what I said as being from a Republican viewpoint and reminded me my country has done far worse things there, which is something I am aware of.