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BASRA, Aug 23: Three British soldiers died on Saturday after being shot by unknown assailants in Basra, a coalition spokesman said.
“A serious incident took place in central Basra at 8:30 this morning (0430 GMT). We can confirm that three British servicemen have been killed and one seriously injured,” the spokesman said.
Witnesses and a British major earlier said that three British soldiers and four Iraqi civilians had been wounded when coalition troops came under fire.
The soldiers, driving a vehicle, were ambushed by the armed men near the old British cemetery, said street seller Sabir Naama.
“The driver was hit and lost control of the vehicle, hitting an Iraqi woman and two children. He then slammed into a building,” said Naama.
The soldiers came under a hail of bullets, with only the driver still alive when British troops pulled them out of the smashed-up, blood-stained vehicle, Naama said.
An Iraqi man was also caught in the crossfire between the soldiers and the attackers. He was taken to hospital, he added.
The deaths brought to 10 the number of British soldiers killed in Iraq since Washington declared major combat over on May 1.
ARREST: Police in Baghdad arrested 10 people, two of them former intelligence officers of Saddam Hussein’s regime, in raids on Saturday morning.
Dozens of assault rifles and three grenade launchers were seized during the operation, police said.
About 150 officers swooped on houses in the northwestern Al-Amiriyah locality and detained the two men along with a former member of Saddam’s Fidayeen militia and seven others, said Iraq’s police chief Brig-Gen Ahmed Ibrahim.
Police confiscated two vehicles, seized
45 AK-47 rifles, a variety of other weapons and ammunition, fake car number-plates and TNT explosives of the kind that are used to blow open doors or safes, officers said.—Agencies
