BASRA, Aug 9: Riots broke out on Saturday in the southern port of Basra as tensions exploded over the British control of Iraq’s second largest city, leaving seven soldiers and four Iraqi civilians injured.
Residents hurled rocks and burned tires in all the city’s main streets as Iraqis raged in the blistering summer heat over the tortoise-like pace of the coalition force’s reconstruction efforts.
The rioting started minutes after witnesses said a grenade was hurled at a British military truck near a gasoline station, where fed-up Iraqis waited in a long line for fuel, angered by the fact they were queuing for hours in a country with the world’s second largest oil reserves.
The British truck came under attack at 9:15 am (0515 GMT), said Ali Hussein, a taxi-driver who had been filling up his car at the time of the blast.
Four British armoured vehicles and three jeeps came to seal off the area, while a crowd lobbed rocks at them, he said.
The soldiers fired in the air to ward off the crowd and then started to shoot rubber bullets, wounding at least four Iraqis, including a child, witnesses said.
The crowd, with some women in headscarves firing off Kalashnikovs in the air, grew to more than 2,000 and shouted in anger over the gasoline shortage in the city, they added.
“There is no fuel, and our situation is terrible,” said Abdul Karim al-Mussawi, 45, a construction worker.
Gas prices have soared from 150 dinars (10 cents) for 20 liters (5.3 gallons) to 12,000 dinars (eight dollars) in a region rife with smuggling of fuel despite a renewed coalition effort to crack down on the illegal trade.
The stone-throwing mob poured down the street toward the British forces’ headquarters and then the violence spread like wildfire.
A soldier was knocked in the head, another in the nose and a third was carried off on a stretcher, while the British defended themselves shooting off rounds of rubber bullets, according to an AFP photographer.
The British military confirmed seven of its soldiers had been injured and were hospitalized for “big bruises and some cuts”.
“We’ve had some soldiers injured. The injuries were caused purely from the riots. And that is, I’m afraid, something that happens. Sooner or later someone is going to get hit by a rock or stone,” Major Charlie Mayo said.
The riot’s fuse was lit when customers turned violent at a gas station where the owner had started to charge black market prices, he said.
“They started to riot and coalition forces went in to quell the situation,” Mr Mayo explained. “One thing fed the other.”
The chaos quickly spread to four other fuel stations, he said, adding the crowds attacked the British troops who tried to calm the situation.
However, Mayo denied the violence had an anti-British sentiment.—AFP