Iraqis set armoured vehicles ablaze

Baghdad: A British military helicopter crashed in Basra yesterday and Iraqis hurled stones at British troops and set fire to three armoured vehicles that rushed to the scene.

Clashes broke out between British troops and Shiite militias, police and witnesses said.

Police Capt Mushtaq Khazim said the helicopter was apparently shot down in a residential district of the city.

He said the four-member crew was killed, but British officials would say only that there were "casualties." British forces backed by armoured vehicles rushed to the area but were met by a hail of stones from the crowd of at least 250 people, who jumped for joy and raised their fists as a plume of thick smoke rose into the air from the crash site.

The crowd also set three British armoured vehicles on fire, apparently with petrol bombs and a rocket-propelled grenade, but the British soldiers inside escaped unhurt, witnesses said. British troops fired weapons into the air in an effort to disperse the crowd, Khazim said.

Shooting broke out between the British and armed militiamen, and at least four people, including a child, were killed, the police officer said. Two of the victims were adults shot by British forces while driving a car in the area, he said.

Crowds chanted "we are all soldiers of Al Sayed," a reference to radical Shiite cleric Moqtada Al Sadr, an ardent foe of the presence of foreign troops in Iraq.

Later the crowd began to scatter as they heard an explosion. Groups of men set fire to tyres in the streets and the situation remained tense.

The chaotic scene was widely shown on Iraqi state television and on the Al Jazeera satellite station.

The attack came at a difficult time for the government of Prime Minister Tony Blair in Britain, where many people oppose the US-led Iraq war.

After a poor showing by his Labour Party in local elections this week, Blair overhauled his Cabinet, ousting Foreign Secretary Jack Straw's following rumours that he and Blair had differed on issues including Iraq. Straw reportedly had expressed doubts about the Iraq war to his boss.