British forces defeated in Basra: US
American officials believe British forces have been defeated in Basra, it was claimed on Tuesday.
London: American officials believe British forces have been defeated in Basra, it was claimed on Tuesday.
A senior US intelligence official told The Washington Post that British commanders had allowed militias loyal to three Shia groups take control of the city's streets.
"The British have basically been defeated in the south," he said.
The report said a contingent of 500 British troops based at Basra Palace were "surrounded like cowboys and Indians".
The rebuke highlights the increasing violence in Basra, one of four provinces handed over to British control after of the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. Three of the four provinces have been pacified and handed back to local leaders. Basra, the most populous, is due to be returned by the end of the year.
A soldier from Second Battalion The Royal Welsh was killed in the city yesterday, bringing the number of British troops lost in Iraq since the end of the war to 165. The man has not yet been named.
Major Mike Shearer, a spokesman for British command in Basra, rejected the suggestion that UK troop levels in the province, which are now down to 5,500, had been cut too fast.
'Concerned'
"This is not Dorset but Basra's crime levels are half the level of Washington," he said. "What we are trying to do is get the security situation to a manageable level where Iraqi solutions can be delivered to Iraqi problems."
America "has been very concerned for some time now about a) the lawless situation in Basra and b) the political and military impact of the British pull back," said a former British defence official, now working in Baghdad.
Gordon Brown told US President George W. Bush last week that British troops planned to hand over responsibility for Basra to local leaders within months.
