"The British did not free our city. We don't need them."

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

Iraqi Mob Killed Britons
Dispute Over Market Patrol Escalated Into Siege

By Rajiv Chandrasekaran
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, June 26, 2003; Page A01

MAJAR AL-KABIR, Iraq, June 25 -- The attack on British forces here that
killed six military police officers Tuesday was carried out by a mob of
Iraqis enraged that paratroops had sought to patrol the town's market,
witnesses and local officials said today.

After a seemingly prosaic dispute between the paratroops and townspeople
escalated into an intense firefight, witnesses said, scores of Iraqis
armed with assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenade launchers laid an
Alamo-like siege to a police station where British military police were
training local patrolmen. At least four soldiers were killed at close
range when their ammunition ran out.

"Almost the whole city was outside," said Ahmed Hassan, a police trainee
who was inside the station but escaped through a side window. "It was
not a small attack. It was like a war."

The clash was the most intense resistance U.S. and British forces have
faced since President Bush declared an end to major combat operations in
Iraq on May 1.

Unlike recent fatal assaults on U.S. troops in restive central Iraq,
which American officials have blamed on fighters loyal to Saddam
Hussein, the siege at the police station in this small southeastern town
did not appear to have been connected to the former president's
supporters. Instead, residents and officials said, it was motivated by a
growing anger at the foreign occupation of Iraq among people who just 10
weeks ago welcomed the fall of Hussein's government, raising concerns
among U.S. and British officials that resistance activity may be
broadening into areas they assumed were pacified.

In Majar al-Kabir and nearby towns, where local Shiite Muslim militias
chased out Hussein's Baath Party government before invading troops
arrived, British soldiers had adopted a low profile, refraining from
shows of force and making relatively few trips into populated areas. But
orders to confiscate banned weapons, such as rocket-propelled grenades,
led them to intensify searches of private homes, which many residents
contend have been conducted in ways that violate conservative local
customs. The Iraqis' rage has been compounded by what they regard as
insufficient progress by the United States and Britain in addressing the
economic disruption and lack of basic services that followed the war.

"We freed our city. We kicked out the Baathists," said Talal Ahmed, 31,
a shopkeeper who was appointed to speak on behalf of several local
police officers and government officials. "The British did not free our
city. We don't need them."

full: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A33526-2003Jun25.html

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