Iraq - Ugliness in Basra

Earlier today, several news sources were reporting that two Britons were arrested in the Basra area for allegedly shooting two Iraqi policemen. This was quite a bit of a shocking news item, since the British-occupied Basra region has been much quieter than the....well...entire rest of the country.

So, just now, I decided to check and see what the updates on this story were. Apparently, according to MSNBC, there's a bit of some disagreement on exactly what happened, but it sounds like the two Britons have been released. According to the British government: "the two men were released as a result of negotiations." Ah, good. Glad to hear that's all settled up.

Oh, but the disagreement? Ah, yes:

British soldiers used 10 armored vehicles to break down the walls of the central jail in this southern city Monday and freed two Britons, allegedly undercover commandos arrested on charges of shooting two Iraqi policemen, witnesses said.

Well, sure...I mean really...."released after negotiations" versus "liberated by the use of military mechanized force storming and destroying the prison"..."po-TAY-toh", "po-TAH-toh."



There ain't a whole lot in the rest of the article that makes the British government's story sound terribly credible. And the pictures in the article aren't too pretty either.

I imagine now that there's some hard evidence showing exactly how sovereign the Iraqis' sovereignty really is, things are only likely to get more interesting.

***UPDATE(10:12pm)**** The Independent has a bit more info.