British troops engage Iraqi fighters around Basra

“There seemed to be an uprising in Basra last night,” British Group Capt Al Lockwood said today. “We are assessing the situation very carefully to see how we can capitalise on it and how we can assist.

“The attack from the local population obviously gave (the defenders) cause for concern to the extent that they started mortaring them.”

British forces targeted the mortar positions with their own artillery, stopping the fire, and later dropped a guided weapon on the local headquarters of Saddam’s Baath party, he said.

Coalition forces have made no secret of their hopes to spur such uprisings.

The British have been distributing leaflets and using loudspeakers to tell citizens that aid is waiting outside the city. Many of the million-plus residents are drinking contaminated water and living under threat of outbreaks of diarrhoea and cholera.

American F/A-18 Super Hornet war planes dropped satellite-guided bombs on central Basra – the first strikes into the city centre, aimed at military sites hidden in civilian buildings.

British pool reports described thousands of residents of Iraq’s second-largest city rampaging through the streets in the early evening and setting dozens of buildings ablaze.

Basra’s population is predominantly Shiite Muslim, and during the 1991 Gulf War the city took up arms against Saddam’s Sunni Muslim regime in Baghdad. But the allies failed to come to their aid and government forces crushed the rebellion, killing thousands across the south.

The reports also described supporters of Saddam driving four-wheel-drive pick-up trucks close to the crowd, apparently seeking to intimidate people and suppress the revolt.

Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed al-Sahhaf denied any uprising in Basra. “The situation is stable,” he said. “Resistance is continuing and we are teaching them more lessons.”

US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld reacted cautiously to reports of the unrest, saying he was “reluctant” to encourage uprisings explicitly.

“I am very careful about encouraging people to rise up,” he said.

“We know there are people in those cities ready to shoot them if they try to rise up.”

But he added: “Anyone who is engaged in an uprising has a whole lot of courage and I sure hope they’re successful.”

The exiled Iraqi National Congress opposition party confirmed that “a large uprising has taken place in Basra,” calling it a “fierce battle” involving hand-to-hand combat and bayonets.

Two British soldiers have been killed by friendly fire near Basra.

Col Chris Vernon said the two men died when their Challenger II tank was mistakenly targeted by another Challenger crew on Monday evening.

Earlier yesterday, British forces staged a raid into Az-Zubayr, a Basra suburb, and captured a senior Baath party politician for the region while killing 20 of his bodyguards, said Col Chris Vernon, a British army spokesman. The official was in custody.

Vernon also said armed irregular units were firing at British forces outside Basra, and that the Iraqis were apparently using civilians in front of them as human shields.

Coalition forces had hoped to avoid entering Basra, for fear of getting bogged down in urban warfare. But tenacious resistance in the city – there are an estimated 1,000 pro-Saddam fighters, plus an unknown number of regular troops - and growing shortages of food and clean water have compelled them to change their strategy.

Gunner Neil Hughes of the Royal Horse Artillery said the Iraqis were using civilian targets as a shield.

“There’s some tanks refuelling – five or six of them – but we couldn’t engage them because they were right next to a built-up area, a hospital,” he said. “So it was left to other means.”

The health threats in Basra appeared dire.

“The humanitarian situation in Basra is difficult, and very, very tense,” said Muin Kassis of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in neighbouring Jordan.

International relief agencies had satellite-phone contact with aid workers in the city and expressed deep concern about the fate of trapped civilians.

“It is very alarming, very critical,” said Veronique Taveau of the UN humanitarian office for Iraq.

The city’s electrical power was knocked out on Friday during US-British bombing, apparently because high-voltage lines were destroyed. That in turn shut down Basra’s water pumping and treatment plants.

The UN Children’s Fund estimated up to 100,000 Basra children under the age of five were at immediate risk of severe disease from the unsafe water, especially life-threatening diarrhoea.

The Red Cross reported Tuesday that its technicians reached the Wafa al-Quaid plant, north of the city, after getting security assurances from both sides. But the generators are only a stopgap.

As for Basra’s casualties in the current conflict, no official word was available, but Qatar-based Al-Jazeera television quoted Iraqi medics on Saturday as saying 50 people were killed in US bombings.

The Arab network also broadcast grisly footage of civilian casualties in Basra, including a dead child with a horrible head wound – a picture that aroused anger across the Arab world.